Ecovillage Project in Bangladesh To promote ecological balance and create harmony between humans and nature

The Sundarbans is the single largest mangrove forest in the World. The Sundarbans mangrove flagship ecosystem is the natural safeguard and provides livelihood support to almost 3.5 millions of coastal people. However, the Sundarbans adjacent communities don’t engage themselves in conservation activities. They are involved in unsustainable resources harvesting and using activities due to their poverty and lack of education.

Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS) and Korea Green Foundation (KGF) have been trying to promote ecological balance and create harmony between humans and nature by establishing an ecovillage in the Sundarbans coastal region of Bangladesh for solving the major complex social and environmental problems such as poverty, drinking water, electricity, cooking fuel, riverbank erosion, education, natural resources management, woman empowerment, etc. Eco Village BEDS was divided into three elements: Green Housing, Green Education, and Green Business.

An ecovillage is the best way to solve complex social and environmental problems by the local people without harming the ecosystem and achieve the SDGs. Under the Green Housing component, 4,594 people are getting safe drinking water; 375 households received fuel-efficient cooking stoves. 3,000 families have enlightened by solar energy. A total of 150,000 mangroves and nearly 130,000 social trees have been planted. We introduced climate-adaptive house design. We established a native seed preservation house. 4,050 students from 25 schools are getting environmental education. 340 villagers are learning environment-friendly farming and fishing. 90 local tour operators and 60 local tour guides received training on eco-tourism. 60 families got training on local culture and heritage promotion. Finally, 45 women received handicraft training and sewing activities.