It was a major setback for the elderly Mosharraf Hossaion when he lost his homestead and land to the erosion of the River Meghna a few years back. Like many others affected by the erosion, Mosharraf was forced to move to a new place. He was in despair and uncertain as he said, Once, I had a happy family at village Vendar in Sukh Char union parishad in Hatiya upazila of Noakhali. River erosion took our home and all our belongings as Hatiya is located at the mouth of the River Meghna in the Bay of Bengal.’ River erosion compelled Mosharraf to leave everything behind, including his homestead, his land, crops, cattle, as his family shifted to village Aladia in Burir Char union in the upazila and took shelter on an embankment near the sea. Not only village Vendar but two other villages went under water and displaced many people like us,’ Mosharraf said, adding that their sufferings had increased manifold due to extreme weather events like tidal surge and cyclone every year since they lived very close to the sea. Nizam Maji was also living in a precarious condition as he was displaced after losing his homestead to seawater. He said that displacement made their lives miserable as they not only lost their house and belongings, but also lost their roots after displacement. Internal displacement was a common phenomenon in Hatiya as a vast portion of the island was being devoured by the river erosion accelerated by sea level rise. According to officials at the Bangladesh Water Development Board, several hundred of acres of arable land, many houses, markets, mosques, educational institutions, roads, cyclone shelters, and 14 kilometres of embankments of the island had gone under water in the last couple of years. Erosion was also occurring in many points of the Hatiya Island, putting many islanders at the risk of displacement. Nizam Maji said that after losing his farmland and house to the erosion, many families of Karingchar, Boyarchar and Nolerchar of the island left their areas and took refuge in cyclone shelters. A 2016 Brac report said that about 27 million people were predicted to be at risk of sea level rise in Bangladesh by 2050 while two-thirds of the country was less than five metres above sea level. The affected were confronting perilous situations without adequate institutional and structural support and were devising their own strategies to cope with the conditions. They were out to make efforts both physically and socially to survive the conditions created by land erosion. The impacts of sea level rise on coastal regions were hazardous and indicated that global sea level rise would be a major challenge with severe implications on human livelihoods. Sea level was on the rise along the Bangladesh coast like other parts of the world. Official data showed sea level rise was observed at 5.73 millimetre per year at Char Changa station in Hatiya while Hiron point in the Sunderbans at 3.38mm per year. The coastal areas along Patuakhali and Bhola and Hatiya Island were very highly vulnerable due to sea level rise while the coastal areas along the Sunderbans and Barguna were highly vulnerable. The coastal communities and islanders in Bangladesh had been realising that sea level was increasing and affecting their lives and livelihoods as recurrent extreme climate events hit them every year. Dewan Hossain, a fisherman of Hatiya, said that the water would reach the embankments when any cautionary signal was hoisted ahead of cyclones in the past. But now the water reaches island embankment even during normal tides, indicating that the water level in sea had increased, he said. The sea was far away from our island in the past but now I feel that the sea is coming near us. One third of our island has gone under water in the last 20 to 25 years,’ observed Abdul Khaleque, 45, resident of Monpura island in Bhola. He said that water from the sea now flooded up to the middle of Manpura through canals and affect vast area of croplands. Due to the sea level rise, salinity intrusion is damaging our croplands, putting our lives and livelihood in trouble,’ Khaleque feared. According to a new study of the International Food Policy Research Institute, sea level rise will push nearly 140,000 coastal people to migrate to other locations within their district while about 60,000 will move to alternate districts. With the rise of climate migrants, the forest department was distributing its fallow land that had surfaced outside the embankments of the islands to the landless, poor and displaced people on lease for 10 years. The land was being distributed under the Integrating Community-based Adaptation into Afforestation and Reforestation Programme jointly initiated by the forest department and the United Nation Development Programme. Divisional forest officer Towhidul Islam said that there was the forest department owned a huge amount of fallow land on the islands which are at the jaw of encroachment by local influencers. If the land was leased to vulnerable families, he said, it could be protected from encroachment and the poor families would be able to cope with their situation. A total of nine hectares of fallow land had so far been distributed among 45 poor families in Hatiya upazila whereas 45 ponds were established on the land and each family got one pond to farm fish. Under the programme, fruit-bearing and timber tree saplings were distributed among the families to plant on their land. For creating livelihood options, they were also trained on how to rear ducks and cultivate vegetables on the banks of their ponds. I got a pond and a piece of land under the programme for 10 years. Now I am farming fish on the pond and cultivating vegetable on my land,’ said Ferdousi who lived in Tanbazar area of Hatiya. Ferdousi said that she had already sold fish worth Tk 10,000 from her pond and hoped that she would be able to sell fish worth Tk 1 lakh within the next three or four months. Towhidul said that the forest department allowed the islanders to utilise its land for 10 years on lease and it was expected that the lease would be renewed based on the success of the programme. The affected people were being denied safe water, sanitation and other basic needs that underscored the importance of taking up national level strategies to cope with the disasters being caused by the forces of nature.