The dryland forests of the Barind Tract and the wetlands of the Haor Area of Bangladesh provide a range of valuable ecosystem services to local communities that derive most of their income from agriculture and fishing. Climate change impacts, including droughts and floods, are harming communities that live in Haor and the Barind Tract, damaging agricultural productivity and fisheries. In an approach known as ‘ecosystem-based adaptation’, a UNEP-supported project is restoring the Haor wetlands and the dryland forests of the Barind Tract in order to protect communities from these climate impacts. The project’s main approaches involve strengthening the technical and institutional capacity of decision-makers to carry out ecosystem-based adaptation, and supporting adaptation technologies that will conserve surface water in the Barind and reduce erosion in the Haor.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a multilateral fund dedicated to confronting biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, and strains on land and ocean health. Over the past three decades, the GEF has provided more than $22 billion in financing and mobilized another $120 billion for more than 5,000 national and regional projects.