Integrated planning the key

Environmentalists believe that the huge environmental destruction of Jungle Salimpur poses a great threat to the ecosystem as the landscape has seen tremendous changes over the years due to mindless hill cutting.

The situation might worsen if the development projects start without a proper integrated plan after research based on data and documentation.

"Those hills in Jungle Salimpur and its adjacent areas date back to the tertiary age. The fragile soil has been further altered due to unabated hill cutting," said Prof Alak Paul of geography and environmental studies at Chittagong University.

The DoE has taken the initiative to launch a specialised survey in this regard, titled "Contour Survey and mapping of hills", said Ferdous Anwar, DoE deputy director in Chattogram. "On July 9, a special meeting was held on hill management, where we discussed our recommendations in detail."

"In the direct method of contouring, the contours to be located will be directly traced out through our fieldwork, making a number of points on each contour. We will then survey the points to plot them on the plan and draw the contours on them," he added.

According to data from Bangladesh Environment Forum, there were 32.37 square kilometres of hills in the port city in 1976, which decreased to 14.02 square kilometres in 2008.