It is hot and muggy, and the sky is full of clouds, plus a steady wind. The trip from Cox’s Bazar to Kutupalong camp to the south takes you south along a beautiful coastal road on the Bay of Bengal before turning inland through narrow and crowded market towns, with traffic becoming ever denser as we approach the camp. My first host is Peter Agnew, an American working for the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, a forester who is excited about a project he has championed. The building of the camp in the aftermath of the forced departure of over 750,000 Rohingya refugees meant the destruction of a vast forest, home to elephants and wildlife, and the building of bamboo tarpaulin shacks built on top of it each other, on hills, ridges, and the banks of streams. The camp is vast, hilly, and almost completed denuded of vegetation. The FAO project accomplishes two things – gives much needed jobs to refugees, and begins a long process of replanting and reforestation on hillsides at risk of collapse from torrential rains. And Peter has another project in mind as well, replacing wood fires with liquid propane – thus saving even more forest, and saving long treks further and further into the jungle for women and children to get firewood.

That first conversation with Peter reminded me of so many I have had with truly dedicated and enthusiastic aid workers, who are only too happy to explain what more can be done to make the camp a liveable space.

It rains on and off through the day, and my next two hosts, Noah and Daman, take us on a long 3 hour trek through the muddy camp. They are responsible for moving refugees out of housing that is either destroyed or threatened by the weather – the monsoon season is just starting – and taking them to higher, flatter ground, which has been engineered and transformed by a group of dedicated engineers and hundreds of Rohingya who are, in effect, rebuilding and re-making their camp.

There are so many ifs and unknowns – how bad the weather will be, how accurate are the predictions about what damage will happen – but there is no room or time for inaction. Aid workers warned us all months ago that the humanitarian disasters are not just potential, they are already real. Secretary General Guterres referred to the camp as a “miracle on the edge” and that is indeed an apt description.

Short term needs are staring to turn to longer term realities – the investments in infrastructure have to be matched by investments in education, and in allowing for more job opportunities for both Rohingya and the surrounding communities of Bangladeshis whose lives have been disrupted by the arrival of nearly a million people. The day ended with a stimulating, if challenging conversation with a group of aid workers, who understand that the camp has become a city, and a city with huge problems. It will have to be complete re-thought and re-designed, and this is difficult with governments who continue to talk about “temporary issues” and the need to send the refugees back.

More on this later.

Read my report as Special Envoy to Myanmar here.