Bangladesh is frequently defined by poverty, resource scarcity, over population, corruption and natural calamities. These are, of course, some conditions that need to be addressed in policy discussion for poverty eradication and overall progress of the country. But there are other factors beyond our boundaries building unavoidable conditions and threats which eventually stand in the way of environmental safety and sustainable development. Bangladesh is stepping into the 21st century with all these conditions and threats in vogue. Some of these conditions and threats already have profound impacts on our ecology, life and livelihood. Despite all these threats and resource constraints, the people of Bangladesh — one of the most densely populated countries on earth — survive. One of the secrets of their survival perhaps is that they can live with little resources and get their resource bases replenished because of their inherent values of less consumption and blessings from nature. So it is important that the country,s land, soil and resource bases are not overexploited or destroyed altogether. However, today their limited resource bases are under many threats because of flawed development models and global changes. This book is a country report on the state of Bangladesh,s environment to a large extent- attempts to project some important signs of the times and what is coming in the next century. Reports from the field and stories of real life, matched and mixed with expert analyses on major environmental issues in Bangladesh, also attempt to develop the context to understand Bangladesh better.