Over 1,600 trees cut down in a day
Some 1,650 Sal trees on nearly 15 acres of land inside Madhupur reserve forest were cut down in a single day.
The incident happened in Chandpur area under Aronkhola Mouja of the forest (sadar range) in Madhupur on November 30. But this correspondent learnt about it lately.
Forest officials blamed some people from adjacent villages in Mymensingh's Muktagachha upazila for the incident. The Daily Star, however, could not verify their claim.
Visiting the spot, this correspondent saw tree stumps all over the place. He also came across some youths whose identity or intention could not be known as they refused to talk. They were holding heavy knives with handle.
Sadar Beat Forest Officer HM Ershad along with a forest guard was seen patrolling a nearby area in the forest.
There, Ershad said several dozen people started cutting down the trees around 3:00pm on November 30. The destruction continued until 10:00pm that day, he said.
“On information, local forest officials along with forest guards rushed to the spot. But they could do nothing but witness the destruction”.
Talking to The Daily Star, Sadar Range Officer Khasru Alam said, ”We could not take any action as the villagers, including women and children, heavily outnumbered us. Besides, they were carrying sharp weapons meant for cutting trees.”
Ershad filed a case with Madhupur Police Station and four prosecution office reports (PORs) the same day, accusing several named and over 100 unnamed people of chopping down the trees.
The accused did not take the chopped trees with them. Those were later collected and brought to the forest range office.
This correspondent saw piles of the trees on the office premises.
Forest officials and locals said chopping down trees in the forest had totally stopped after the forest department started implementing a project titled “Revegetation of Madhupur Forest through Rehabilitation of Forest Dependent Local Ethnic Communities” in 2010.
Under the project, 700 locals, believed to have been involved in cutting down trees, were trained up to save the forest as community forest workers (CFWs).
Identity cards, uniforms, boots, weekly allowance of Tk 300 and several other facilities were provided to them.
Felling of trees and grabbing of forestland, however, resumed just after the Tk 22 crore-project ended in December 2015.
Some of the trained CFWs started stealing trees again, saying the forest department did not keep its promise of withdrawing cases filed against them before the project began.
In this situation, the forest officials organised a meeting with the villagers at the range office around 11:00am on November 30.
The meeting aimed at reassuring the villagers that a fresh project employing them would start again soon, added the officials and the locals.
However, the move was foiled as some plain-clothes men went to the meeting and tried to pick up some of the CFWs.
“The CFWs thought it was a plot to hand them over to the law enforcers,” said MA Hasan, assistant conservator of forests in Madhupur.
Later, the angry CFWs and other villagers started cutting down the trees, chanting slogans against the forest department, he added.
The Daily Star contacted some of the villagers but they refused to talk.
Masud Rana, divisional forest officer in Tangail, said it is not possible to stop such incidents as those who come to cut down trees are usually large in number.
The local forest office currently has only 18 forest guards, six firearms (with strict restrictions on using them), one pickup and seven motorcycles for “protecting” such a huge forest area, he said.
Talking about works for the villagers, he said they already had submitted a proposal for a fresh Tk 18.87 crore project titled ”Eco-tourism Development and Sustainable Management of Madhupur National Park through the Collaboration of Local and Ethnic Communities for 2016 to 2019”.
The proposal has been sent to the planning ministry for approval, he added.
Mir Jalal Ahmed, field manager of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela), however, said apart from such “temporary” projects, a strong and sincere political commitment is also a must for saving the Sal forest.
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