Impacts of Rohingya Migration on Surrounding Environment of Ukhiya, Bangladesh

This study was conducted at Ukhiya Upazila of Cox’s Bazar district to find out the socio-environmental impacts due to Rohingya refugee’s invasion of the study area. Both the quantitative and qualitative tools were used to analyzed data and information, in order to assess these impacts. According to the finding, 3918 acre natural and 1879 acre man-made forest coverage was damaged due to Rohingya refugees sheltering in the study area. This study finds out that 42% of the refugees living in the Kutupalong sheltering area are directly dependent on the forest for cooking wood of 1411 tons/day. Moreover, Rohingya`s are significantly affecting other natural resources including soil, agricultural land, and surface and ground-water of the study area. In fact, they using 18.26 million liters of water per day and the ground-water level has been depleted by 25 meters during the time period of 25 August 2017 to February 2018. Furthermore, ~9000 hectares of farming land with local crops (Boro, Aman, Betel leaf) and fruits had been permanently damaged as impacts of Rohingya migration on the area studied. We measured the noise level surroundings of the Rohingya camps, which was 1.5 times higher than the DoE recommended value for the residential area. Various lifethreatening diseases were also identified towards the refugees among them diphtheria was most alarming. Moreover, Rohingya are also involved in various antisocial activities including smuggling, drug trafficking, robbery, snatch, theft, etc. Such societal degradation might trigger multiplicative impacts on the environment and overall socio-economic circumstances of the whole Teknaf area.

Rohingya refugees are the most deprived ethnic group sheltered in southeastern part of Bangladesh (UNHCR, 2016). Their actual habitat is the Rakhain state in Myanmar. Myanmar government does not accept them as their core ethnic group and runs a vicious deprivation in various sectors. Consequently, they have been relocating towards nearby countries (WHO, 2017). Bangladesh is the most nearby country of Myanmar by way of adjacent international border. They are being pushed into Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh since 1992. At last in 25 th August 2017 their army has run a brutal ethnic cleansing. More than 1 million Rohingya people therefore entered into the Cox's Bazar region of Bangladesh (BBC News, 2018). At present, refugees constitute more than a third of the local population of southeastern Bangladesh (IOM, 2018). The total refugee population is assessed at 882,676 where children make up the greater part, adults and the elderly constitute 42% and 3%, respectively (WHO, 2017).
The requirements of the refugees are obviously excessive, but it is no longer adequate simply to address their necessities. Rising costs, dwindling wages of low-skilled workers, are unfavorably touching host populations. As a result, environmental degradation, excessive pressure on public services growing concerns between refugee and host Bangladesh (UNHCR, 2018). The objectives of the study were as follows: to find out impact of Rohingya migration on local environment of Ukhiya and to assess their impact on social and health sector of the study area.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:
The study was conducted in two union Kutupalong (21.2126°N 92.1634°E) and Balukhali (21.19°N 92.16°E) of Ukhiya Upazilla of Cox's Bazar districts where Rohingya refugees camps are situated (Fig 1). The camp area is divided into two prominent parts: old registered camp and new unregistered camp. The study was conducted on new unregistered camp during the period February to September 2018. The empirical data and findings were procured by questionnaire survey, field observation and from secondary sources including published and un-published literatures, books and newspaper. For the questionnaire survey 72 respondents of local people and 77 respondents of refugees were selected through random sampling. The sound level was measured with portable digital sound level meter (Model: ST8820). Microsoft Office Excel software was used to present and interpret the collected data. The results of the study were presented in tabular and graphical form.   Table 3). Various environmental issues like deforestation, water pollution, soil degradation due to hill cutting, waste production etc. related to the Rohingya refugee sheltering in the study area were documented. Among all the environmental problems, most serious problem created by the Rohingya is deforestation (Fig 2).   In line with the survey 100% local people think that natural environment of the study area is being polluted day by day. 72% local respondent said that refugees dumped their waste scattered despite of planned dustbin system in the camp. Other 27% respondent thinks, refugees dump their waste scattered, but in a certain area which is restricted for them. However, 6 distinct respondents from total of 21 respondents, who are senior members of the society (Union Parishad member, ex UP member, and Village matabbar) reported that refugees are polluting upper stream of 4 major canals coming out from the Rajapalong hill area, which are flowing the downstream. According to the respondents, Rohingya migrants will hamper agricultural production due to severe pollution of upstream surface water. Most of the houses in Rohingya camps are made of plastic sheet, tarpaulin, bamboo, wood and Aluminium. Drinking water is supplied with plastic containers. They carry their food products with polythene bags and polythene sacks. They collect cooking oil in plastic bottles and most of them (discarded containers, plastic bags, kitchen wastes) are dumped elsewhere, which is creating waste burden for the local environment. Table 5 shows that the level of noise around the refugee camps varied from 55 dB to 77 dB with various time of the day. According to the Noise Pollution Control Rules (2006) the acceptable sound condition for Bangladesh is 50 dB for daytime and 40 dB for the night in silent areas, 50 dB for daytime and 45 dB for the night in residential areas (DoE, 2017). This study was observed that the sound limit crossed the acceptable level of Bangladesh in residential areas ( Table 5).  showed that 51% Rohingya people are dependent on market and forest for fuel wood. However, 98% of the local people blamed that the refugees are cutting trees from the reserve forest for cooking purpose. Moreover, agricultural productivity has been declined significantly in Ukhiya due to Rohingya invasion. It is noted that ~60 hectare Boro and ~65 hectare of Aman has been damaged in Ukhiya upazila. Ruhingya refugees are polluting upper stream of 4 major canals coming out from the Rajapalong hill area, which will hamper agricultural production in upcoming days. Furthermore, noise level has been measured nearby of the refugee camps and observed that noise limit crossed the acceptable level for residential areas of Bangladesh. Finally, the migrants have drastically decreased social harmony of the study areas since they are involved in various antisocial activities including drug smuggling, snatching, theft and robbery.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
To accomplish this study we acknowledged the financial support from Research cell of MBSTU, Tangail. We conveyed special thanks to RRRC, Ukhiya and Cox`s bazar south forest division for their cordial supports during data collection for this study.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:
We agreed that we don't have any conflicts for the possible publication of this