COX'S BAZAR, May 22 (UNB): The Rohingyas living in Kutupalong camp joined a peaceful procession in several areas of the huge refugee settlement on Tuesday marking the International Day for Biological Diversity.
The procession, joined by hundreds of Rohingyas volunteering as Elephant Response Team (ERT) members at the vast Kutupalong refugee site, was arranged on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the annual global event.
Volunteers held placards and banners, including some shaped as elephants, with slogans reading: "Elephants are the Friends of Nature", "Save Wildlife, Save Nature" and "Let's Make the World a Greener Place".
Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Mohammad Abul Kalam, Country Representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Raquibul Amin, UNHCR Environment Officer Ehsanul Hoque as well as officials from the Bangladesh Forest Department joined the volunteers.
At a meeting after the procession, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Kalam praised IUCN and UNHCR for their joint project aimed at reducing incidents involving elephants coming into conflict with refugees.
"To protect us, to survive...we need forests, we need animals. We must understand how important this biodiversity is. Elephants are also part of this bio-diverse ecosystem and should be respected", he added.
Part of the project includes training volunteer Rohingya refugees as Elephant Response Teams (ERTs) to guard the refugee settlements.
The project will also work with the local host community.
Since the Rohingya refugee influx into Bangladesh last August, there have been at least 13 deaths resulting from human-elephant incidents in the main Kutupalong-Balukhali refugee settlement.
The highly congested Kutupalong refugee site, which houses around 600,000 refugees who fled Myanmar, used to be forest land but is now crowded with tens of thousands of refugee shelters and services.
The site lies along one of Asian elephants' main migratory routes between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Asian elephants are critically endangered species in Bangladesh, thought to number just 268.
The project is part of a programme by UNHCR and IUCN, working closely with the government authorities, aimed at mitigating some of the environmental impacts linked to the establishment of refugee settlements in Cox's Bazar.
Meanwhile, newly appointed UN Secretary-General's special envoy on Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener has expressed willingness to directly listen to the Rohingyas living in Cox's Bazar camps.
Burgener shared her willingness to visit Bangladesh when she met Bangladesh's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York Masud Bin Momen on Monday.
Ambassador Momen invited her to visit Bangladesh sooner at a time convenient to her, said the Bangladesh Mission in New York on Tuesday.
Burgener is now preparing to visit Myanmar in June and she might visit Bangladesh too at that time.
Momen invited Burgener to visit Bangladesh sooner at her convenient time, said a press release issued on Monday by Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations.
On April 26, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the appointment of Burgener of Switzerland as his new special envoy to Myanmar.
She brings over 25 years of experience in diplomacy, having served in various high-level government positions in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
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