16,000 acres of forest at risk
The Forest Department is in fear of permanently losing around 16,000 acres of Sal forest in Mymensingh's Bhaluka upazila as the land ministry recorded it as khas and private land.
The forestland, as large as 226 Ramna parks, would go under deputy commissioner of the district and other individuals if the land record is not corrected. It would expose the land to misuse such as deforestation, grabbing and many more, said forest department officials.
According to Forest Department sources, around 65 percent of forestland in Mymensingh district -- 25,070 acres out of 38,858 -- has been encroached since the independence.
The fresh threat would only increase the portion of misused land, they feared.
The Forest Department also sent multiple letters to the land ministry raising their concerns and requested the Land Record and Survey Department to conduct another survey in the conflicting mauzas in Bhaluka.
The land ministry, however, paid no heed to the request and turned down the Forest Department's proposal, officials said.
This happened at a time when the government is trying to increase the country's forest coverage to 18 percent from 15.58 percent by 2030 which is a condition to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
Abdullah Al Mahsin Chowdhury, the then secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, wrote a letter to Madsudur Rahman Patwari, secretary to the Ministry of Land, on November 26, 2019 in this regard.
According to the letter, around 23,078.26 acres of Sal forest in 30 mauzas of Bhaluka was declared protected forest and handed over to Forest Department with gazette notifications published in phases under the Forest Act, 1927.
As the Bangladesh Survey ended in 1995, only 7,226.75 acres of the land in six mauzas was recorded as forestland, the letter mentioned, also stating, "we have noticed huge mistakes in the survey report".
Out of the rest 15,851.51 acres in 24 mauzas, around 8,008 acres were recorded as khas land in favour of Mymensingh's deputy commissioner and 4,661.72 acres as private land while the fate of the rest 3,181.85 acres remained unknown.
The letter also mentioned that it would encourage land grabbing and multiplicity of suits. It will also leave negative impact on biodiversity, wildlife and environment.
"Besides, it will increase land related cases and clash among people in those areas," it read.
As the land is a government property, it is a duty of all the government agencies to record Forest Department's land in its name, the letter mentioned.
According to Forest Department officials, the negligence of survey officials was so severe that they even recorded a national park -- Kadigarh National Park -- as a private property.
"They saw it was a national park with huge greenery under the forest department, still they recorded it as a private property," said one official.
Meanwhile, Chief Conservator of Forest Mohammed Shafiul Alam Chowdhury wrote another letter to the director general at the Directorate of Land Record and Survey on October 20, 2019.
In the letter, it was mentioned that the forest department is eligible to conduct resurveys of any land for the greater interest of the government as per the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950 and Tenancy Rules 1955.
In response, on November 11, 2019, Deputy Secretary of the Directorate of Land Record and Survey, Moniruzzaman, said the land record was published following the directives of the Ministry of Land in nine mauzas of Bhaluka.
The letter also mentioned that they were working on to publish records of 21 more mauzas. It was not possible for them to conduct resurvey.
Meanwhile, seeking anonymity, an official who worked for the forest department in Mymensingh said, "They [officials of Directorate of Land Record and Survey] recorded land in the name of anyone who submitted documents to them. But they did not check whether those documents were fake or not.
"We wanted to know about that remaining 3,181.85 acres but that could not be known as they have not informed us about it properly."
Asked, ABM Fazlur Rahman, director of land record and survey department, said although the land was recorded in the name of Forest Department in Cadastral Survey (ended in 1940), it was not mentioned in the State Acquisition (SA) record.
And the Forest Department did not fix it, he added.
He said, "Our field surveyor recorded the land in favour of possessors of the land. The Forest Department did not raise their objections when our field surveyors were conducting the survey."
Currently the authorities of land record and survey is under process of publishing the survey report of the rest 21 mouzas, said Fazlur Rahman.
"Even after publishing the report, the Forest Department will be able to appeal to the Survey tribunal. Even they can move to the High Court and Supreme Court," he added.
However, a top official from the department of forest said, it was a very difficult process to recover the land by filing cases as it takes lots of time and the government officials are also transferred from their stations.
Once upon a time, vast areas of Cumilla, Gazipur, Mymensingh and Tangail were covered with Sal forest. But only a few last patches of the forest still survive, hosting varieties of wild animals including fishing cat, rhesus monkey, fox, mongoose, snake and different birds.
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