When development becomes displacement: Lessons from Bangladesh’s vanishing coast

In today’s global economy, “development” is often treated as an unquestionable good—synonymous with progress, prosperity, and modernization. But in many parts of the Global South, including Bangladesh, development has come to mean something quite different: destruction of nature, loss of cultural identity, and mass displacement.

The island sub-district of Maheshkhali, in coastal Cox’s Bazar, offers a striking case in point. Once known for its salt flats, betel leaf cultivation, rice paddies, and fishing communities, Maheshkhali is being rapidly transformed by a series of mega-infrastructure projects—coal-fired power plants, LNG terminals, and deep-sea ports. Under the banner of national development, hills are being razed, wetlands filled in, and traditional livelihoods wiped out.

Local communities are being pushed off their ancestral lands with little compensation or recourse. Women face heightened vulnerabilities. Children are growing up in uncertainty. Biodiversity is under siege. And all of this is happening in a region already on the front lines of the climate crisis—battling rising seas, salinity, and intensifying cyclones.

Is development truly progress if it leaves people landless, nature degraded, and cultures erased? If GDP rises but resilience declines?

What’s happening in Maheshkhali is not isolated. Across coastal Cox’s Bazar—in Chakaria, Pekua, Teknaf, and Ramu—rivers are being diverted, forests cleared, and communities displaced to make way for infrastructure often with minimal consultation or environmental oversight.

Echoes from Matarbari: The human cost of energy ambitions

The transformation of Maheshkhali is perhaps most vividly reflected in Matarbari, where a Japan-backed ultra-supercritical coal power plant is under construction. A 2019 investigation by The Daily Star revealed that at least 45 families were evicted from the area to make way for the plant. Of them, only ten families received new housing within the first year, and many others were left to live in makeshift conditions.

“We were told to leave within seven days,” one affected resident told The Daily Star. “We moved to a nearby area, but no one came back to help us.”

Community members also reported loss of farmland and salt beds, with little clarity on how or when compensation would come. Traditional livelihoods have been disrupted permanently, and local social cohesion has begun to erode under pressure from industrial activity and land insecurity.

A second displacement for climate refugees

In an even more recent case, Antiaero reported in April 2025 that over 70,000 people, many of them already displaced by previous climate disasters, now face eviction again in Cox’s Bazar town. This time, the reason is the expansion of the Air base and Cox’s Bazar Airport—projects framed as critical to national defense and economic growth.

According to the report, over 20,000 families currently residing on government khas land in Kalatali, Samitypara, and nearby areas are being removed without any clear roadmap for resettlement. On 7 January 2025, thousands protested against the eviction drives, demanding housing rights and dignified rehabilitation.

The protesters, many of whom had already migrated from erosion-prone areas like Kutubdia and Banshkhali, carried signs reading: “Where will we go again?”

As Antiaero put it, this is “a case of climate refugees being displaced again by climate-blind infrastructure.”

The ecological irony

The bitter irony is that these development projects—built in the name of energy security, resilience, and national pride—are unfolding in ecologically fragile zones. In Maheshkhali, mangrove forests are being cleared and hill tracts levelled, further weakening natural buffers that protect against cyclones and storm surges.

Fisheries have declined due to dredging and pollution. Salt producers are losing their fields to landfills and roadworks. Marine and migratory bird habitats, including those near Sonadia Island, are under serious threat.

“Fish stocks are collapsing. Forests are gone. We are witnessing ecological suicide in slow motion,” said one marine ecologist, who asked not to be named for fear of backlash.

Rethinking the metrics of progress

Bangladesh’s long-term development vision—embodied in projects like the Matarbari power plant, Sonadia port, LNG terminals, and airport expansions—is built on the promise of industrialization, connectivity, and job creation. But without meaningful safeguards for people and ecosystems, this model risks becoming a blueprint for exclusion and collapse.

As the late Dr. Saleemul Huq frequently warned, “Development without adaptation is not development—it’s disaster in disguise.”

So the real question remains: who benefits from this development? If landless farmers, fisherfolk, and displaced families are not part of the equation, can it truly be called inclusive growth?

A new vision for the coast

Bangladesh needs development—but not at the cost of human dignity and ecological survival. The path forward must prioritize:

Participatory planning, with free, prior, and informed consent from affected communities

Environmental safeguards that preserve mangroves, wetlands, and biodiversity corridors

Fair compensation and relocation for those displaced

Investment in decentralized, nature-based solutions, rather than mega-projects that displace and degrade

Recognition of the rights and voices of climate-vulnerable people, not just investors and policymakers. As Abdur Razzak, a salt farmer from Maheshkhali, put it:
“They call it development. But for us, it is the end of everything we know.”

What’s being lost is not just land, but lifeways—networks of mutual care, oral histories, cultural rituals tied to land and sea. “Development has become a word we fear,” says Firoza Begum, a local activist.

If we fail to change course, we risk losing not only Maheshkhali—but the entire coast, and with it, generations of heritage, resilience, and connection to land and sea.