Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT) Affairs Adviser Supradip Chakma on Monday urged collective and effective actions to tackle the pressing challenges of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, including climate change, biodiversity loss and air pollution.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the HKH Parliamentarians’ Meet 2025, he emphasised the importance of solidarity in addressing these common crises.
“Let’s be together and try to see that we can bring a change for the region, for our whole Himalayan community and for the rest of the world,” he said while delivering his speech.
The CHT Affairs Adviser said it is the prime time to know their situation – what is going on here in terms of climate change, biodiversity and all and its impacts.
He referred to what Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus was telling them while observing the World Environment Day and said, “Perhaps each and every individual we are criminal to the environment and we are criminalizing each and everybody that include our future generation.”
The Adviser urged participants to make the most of the event, noting that policymakers should meet more frequently to act on the issues being raised and discussed.
“It is not just one-fourth, directly and indirectly, nearly half of the global population lives in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, and they are all interconnected, affecting each other,” he said.
He also expressed support for the creation of a stronger platform for cooperation.
“I support the proposal that we need a platform. It is a kind of sub regional cooperation group and we need to make it stronger and make a collective voice so that we can safeguard our region, the global environment, and biodiversity,” said the Adviser.
A Bangladesh delegation, led Adviser Supradip Chakma, is attending the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Parliamentarians’ Meet-2025.
BNP Standing Committee Member and former Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Debapriya Bhattacharya, spoke at separate high-level panel discussions.
Senior Joint Member Secretary of National Citizen Party Dr Tasnim Jara and its Joint Member Secretary Mir Arshadul Hoque are among the members of the Bangladesh delegation.
Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel attended the meet as the chief guest, while Speaker Devraj Ghimire attended it as a special guest.
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Director General Pema Gyamtsho and representatives from other participating countries also spoke at the inaugural session.
The inaugural session was followed by various technical sessions.
The event is exploring common understandings, dialogues and coordination among the parliamentarians of the nations in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) sustains nearly one-fourth of humanity — providing water, food and livelihoods for 240 million people in the mountains and 1.65 billion downstream.
But the region, experts say, faces urgent and interconnected threats from climate change, biodiversity loss, disasters and air pollution.
The Federal Parliament of Nepal is hosting the Hindu Kush Himalaya Parliamentarians’ Meet, the largest-ever assembly of legislators from across the region.
The event offers policymakers a platform to deliberate on shared challenges and advance collective, trans-boundary solutions for a more resilient future.
The HKH parliamentarians’ Meet 2025 aims to provide an effective platform for members of the parliaments from the HKH countries to come together, access the latest knowledge and information about the HKH region’s issues, challenges and opportunities, share experiences about the best parliamentary practices and discuss forward-looking policy actions.