Natural streams, the lifeline of Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts’ rich biodiversity, are vanishing due to a combination of anthropogenic and climate change-induced stresses. Aggressive deforestation is wiping out local flora, including the bamboo groves that help the soil absorb water underground. Combined with erratic rainfalls, this has left natural streams completely dry for eight rainless months every year for the last few years. Wildlife and local communities, both dependent on the streams, are suffering from an acute water crisis, as experts have observed. Having experienced the water shortage, Mahfuz Ahmed Russel, custodian of the community-based initiative (PCI) in Khagrachhari district’s Matiranga region in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), has adapted a customized version of a local practice to pilot the revival of streams. Traditionally, local people harvest rainwater by damming streams or diverting stream water into ponds for fish farming. “Instead of disturbing the streams, I harvest rainwater to keep them alive,” Mahfuz tells Mongabay. In small valleys within the 9.3-hectare (23-acre) privately conserved Pittachhara Forest, Russel has constructed three artificial ponds by building earthen dams at the foot of the valleys. Locally, such gentle-sloping flatlands, surrounded on three sides by hillocks, are called longa. The ponds collect monsoon runoffs and, over time, water gradually seeps from those into nearby streambeds, helping keep them alive or moist for four to six months during the dry season. Russel’s house in the 9.3-hectare (23-acre) privately conserved Pittachhara Forest. Image courtesy of Mahfuz Ahmed Russel. Rainwater-fed ponds boost biodiversity The Pittachhara Forest, named after…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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