Stone, Silence, and the State
Lamia Mohsin
At Sylhet’s Sada Pathor, the transformation from luminous riverbed to gouged quarry is not a failure of public understanding; it is a failure of institutions. Awareness campaigns proliferated, yet extraction intensified. The proximate cause is straightforward: rules exist, but their enforcement is intermittent, negotiable, and ultimately subordinate to political and economic incentives that reward violation.
A governance lens clarifies the dynamics. The situation reflects regulatory capture and a persistent principal–agent misalignment: agencies mandated to protect ecologically critical areas respond more to patrons than to the public. Periodic “drives” that cut power lines or seize machines create the appearance of action without altering underlying payoffs. Operators adapt, pause briefly, and resume. In effect, the certainty of gain outweighs the probability of sanction.
The political economy of extraction in Bangladesh compounds these structural weaknesses. Local operations are embedded in patron–client networks—syndicates of financiers, transporters, middlemen, and officials who distribute the rents of illegality widely enough to purchase tolerance and silence. Under these conditions, enforcement becomes risk-laden for administrators: strict action can trigger road blockades, collective protests, and pressure from influential intermediaries. The rational bureaucratic response is caution, delay, and episodic intervention rather than sustained deterrence.
The ecological externalities are borne locally and cumulatively. Riverbed degradation, bank erosion, turbidity, and the collapse of tourism incomes shift costs onto communities least equipped to absorb them. Occupational risks for workers—landslides, injuries, and fatalities—are treated as incidental rather than as signals of systemic regulatory failure. The result is a vicious equilibrium: environmental damage escalates while accountability remains diffuse.
Why, then, have years of awareness raising and NGO advocacy appeared inconsequential? Because they primarily targeted preferences, not payoffs. Public information can shame, mobilize, and litigate, but it cannot—on its own—alter the incentive structure that makes extraction profitable and punishment unlikely. Donor-funded activism often remains projectized: rich in trainings, toolkits, and short campaigns, but thin on multi-year monitoring, litigation follow-through, whistle-blower protection, and post-verdict compliance audits. In a fragmented administrative field—environment, minerals, local government, police, border forces—no single node is responsible for ecological outcomes, enabling chronic slippage between policy and practice.
Reversing this equilibrium requires enforcement architecture that makes compliance the path of least resistance. Three shifts are central:
First, institutional consolidation with outcome accountability. Vest clear authority in a single enforcement unit with jurisdiction across agencies, and evaluate its leadership on measurable ecological indicators (e.g., integrity of designated no-take zones, riverbed elevation trends, restoration milestones). Equip this unit with GIS-delineated polygons, automated meter disconnections, and asset seizure protocols that trigger without discretionary delay.
Second, financial-crime framing of illegal extraction. Treat the trade as organised theft and corruption rather than as an administrative nuisance. Pursue transporters, financiers, and complicit officials through anti-corruption and money-laundering statutes; track cases from seizure to conviction; and publish regular, public dashboards to align reputational incentives with legal ones.
Third, civic capacity beyond messaging. Resource local watchdog coalitions to verify compliance after media attention fades; protect journalists and community leaders; and design benefit-sharing mechanisms—such as community trusts capitalised by tourism revenues—so that preservation generates tangible local returns.
The lesson from Sylhet is not that awareness is futile but that awareness without consequences is performative. Where the rewards for breaking rules are predictable and the risks remain remote, excavators will return. Ending the culture of impunity—by aligning authority, incentives, and accountability—is the necessary precondition for safeguarding Bangladesh’s rivers and the communities that depend on them.
Author’s Biography:
Lamia Mohsin is a young Bangladeshi development professional and researcher working on climate change, governance and public policy. A former Chevening Scholar, she currently works as an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Environment and Development Studies of United International University (UIU). She has also worked extensively across international organisations such as UNDP Bangladesh and the Global Center on Adaptation, along with the Bangladesh Presidency of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) from 2020 to 2022, during which she worked on key areas of climate change including adaptation and resilience.