Bangladesh
My subject for Bangladesh is environmentalist and lawyer, Syeda Rizwana Hasan
Geography
Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 163 million people, in an area of 148,560 square kilometres making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Bangladesh shares land borders with India to the west, north, and east, Myanmar to the southeast, and the Bay of Bengal to the south.
Source Wikipedia
Environmental issues
As Bangladesh features a flood plain landscape with several river systems throughout the country the primary environmental concerns are flooding and cyclones with specific worries that these will be worsened by climate change.
In addition Bangladesh has concerns about groundwater metal contamination, increased groundwater salinity, and changing patterns of stream flow due to watershed mismanagement.
About Rizwana
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, an enrolled lawyer with the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. In professional life, Rizwana works for the environment as the Chief Executive of the reputed national Non Governmental Organization, the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA). Her main focus is to promote environmental justice in Bangladesh.
Rizwana has filed litigation on various environmental issues most of which have received successful judgments. She has fought against river pollution, ship breaking, cutting of hills, unregulated mining, unplanned urbanization, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity.
Rizwana has also led successful legal campaigns against vehicular pollution, industrial pollution, filling up of wetlands in and around Dhaka by unscrupulous housing companies, commercial and forced shrimp cultivation and depriving forest dwellers of their traditional forest rights
Rizwana received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2009 for her outstanding contribution in protecting and conserving the environment of hercountry. She has been named as one of the 40 Environmental Heroes of the World by the TIME magazine.
To watch the video showing the painting process with more details of Rizwana’s story, please click on this button.