"Eroding Bangladeshi rivers stole their land - and now climate change and overfishing threaten the life they have built on water".

"MOJU CHOWDHURY HAT, Bangladesh - Shahida Begum's family lost their land along Bangladesh's ever-eroding river deltas so long ago that none of her family can remember a life on land.

"I was born on a boat on the river, like my father and grandfather. I heard we started living on boats after losing our land and house to the Meghna River," Begum, 30, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Today, Begum's entire community -known as the Manta people - live aboard small boats on two of the nation's major rivers. It's a challenging way to survive - but one more Bangladeshis may be driven to adopt as climate change and sea level rise speed land erosion.

Only in death are most Manta taken permanently ashore - to be buried in the soil in accordance with Muslim tradition."

Zakir Hossain Chowdhury reports for Thomson Reuters Foundation July 12, 2022. [2]