Centre for Coastal Environmental Conservation (CCEC)

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Centre for Coastal Environmental Conservation (CCEC)is a nonprofit grass roots environmental organization in Bangladesh for the protection and sustainable development of coastal ecosystem through local initiatives and participation. CCEC was founded in response to growing concern over the continual degrading situation in coastal ecosystems and placing emphasis on its conservation as reflected in the country’s conservation policies and strategies and recommendations of the professional and civil societies’ of the country. CCEC was formed in 1993 and became a member of IUCN Bangladesh (NG/24659) in 2003 with a view to strengthen nature conservation movement in the country.

CCEC is envisioned to promote community based sustainable environment development of Bangladesh and Sundarbans coastal ecosystems.

Its mandates relate to environmental sustainability, rights & dignity and poverty reduction of the climate vulnerable Sundarbans coastal communities through grassroots participation. We values the inclusive Sundarbans resource dependent stakeholders, disaster prone coastal communities, women and children, disable person, community empowerment for access rights and justice, humanitarian development

Since 1993, the CCEC is raising environmental awareness among the coastal communities focusing on environmental education, environmental law, eco schools Bangladesh, biodiversityconservation, sustainable harvesting, capacity building of the Sundarbans stakeholders, mangrove regeneration & plantation, disaster risk reduction & recovery, climate change adaptation, human rights, good governance in biodiversity conservation, cultural activities and poverty reduction.

Major activities:
• Environmental Awareness:
Environmental Education and Training is the main thrust of the organization. Over 1200 Primary School Teachers of the Sundarbans region have been trained by developing Environmental Education (EE) package consisting of teachers’ manual, students booklet, poster and a colorful Flip Charts in cooperation with Directorate of Primary Education, Primary Training Institute and Khulna University.
Cultural pot song: As part of mass conservation awareness raising tool, we developed pot songs, Sundarbans Jagoroni pot song, on various issues on conservation of Sundarbans and its resources in cooperation with Sudipti cultural team and performed the pot songs in the localities surrounding the Sundarbans.
• Sundarbans Resource Dependent Community Cooperatives: Sundarbans Stakeholder Cooperative Society and a number of Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) have been formed in Dacope, Mongla and Shyamnagar Upazilla (sub district) involving members from bawali (wood and thatch cutter), mawali (honey collector), jele (fish & crab harvesters) with a view to develop their improved livelihoods.
• Mangrove Regeneration and Plantation: 57 acres of lands has been leased out to CCEC for seven years (2010-2016) and we planted more than 30000 mangrove saplings outside embankment that stretches over about 10 km along the Malancha River bank in Polder-5 of Shyamnagar and Environmental education training for School teachers Satkhira by forming a Mangrove Protection Society (MPS).
• Tiger Conservation Activities:
Tiger-Human conflict mitigation: We formed 18 Tiger Conservation Groups, consisting of 21 members each and engaged them in tiger-human conflict mitigation in Shyamnagar area of Sundarbans.
Tiger-widow Group: In order to reduce illegal fuelwood collection from Sundarbans we also formed a group involving widows whose husbands have been eaten by tigers and other women, and distributed Improved Cooking Stove (ICS) among the members of the group.
• Handicraft Production: We have engaged local poor resourcedependent communities, e.g. rishi (minority low caste Hindu community), tiger widows and indigenous munda communities targeting their livelihood improvement and awareness building on Sundarbans conservation. The group is producing wall mats and other souvenir items with imprints of Sundarbans symbolic wildlife and its unique ecosystems for selling to tourists visiting the Sundarbans.
• Climate Vulnerable Sundarbans Stakeholder Forum: CCEC also formed upazila based civil society forum as a pressure group in different surrounding upazilas of the Sundarbans with a view to raise voices for the protection of the Sundarbans the world’s largest mangrove from the adverse impacts of development activities, climate change and other anthropogenic activities.

Mowdudur Rahman is the Founder and Director of Centre for Coastal Environmental Conservation (CCEC).

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.