RENEWED fire in the Sundarbans on Monday as a news report in The New Nation said highlighting the devastation to shock the nation. It is the third consecutive incident in three weeks time that collectively have made barren a large part of the forest, which is the habitat of Royal Bengal Tigers and such other precious animal species. It is clearly an act of sabotage forest employees in the spot said.
The world is becoming more and more assiduously aware now about environmental protection and Bangladesh itself is no less vocal in global forums as a climate victim. But the repeated fire in the Sundarbans apparently carried out by criminal gangs to bring more land under fisheries and commercial use appears to be self-defeating to our commitment to save our forest and protect the environment.
Fire is burning the forest repeatedly when the government’s apathetic silence against polluters of Sundarbans river system and its assertiveness to set up a coal-based power plant near the forest is only giving all misleading signals about our commitment to save the world’s largest mangrove forest.
The fire originated at noon in the East Zone of the forest and gutted plants and everything for several hours. Forest employees, fire fighters and local people extinguished fire and in the opinion of many certain vested quarters have set the fire to clear the land to facilitate illegal occupation and expansion of commercial activities. Earlier, on April 14 a similar fire devastated a portion of forest in the same area. On March 27, another fire broke out in the area.
It is no secret that fishermen who are influential in the locality set fire to the forest almost every year during the dry season to set up canals and create water bodies for fisheries. As soon as monsoon begins, they start random fishing. They work with support from some unscrupulous forest officials who give the land on lease for fishing and mutually benefit from it. A recently formed probe body blamed carelessness of local people for the fire in the forest, but the reality is otherwise, as informed sources claimed.
The Sundarbans is the majestic gift of the nature that cannot be created again. We can only say regretfully that the government functionaries are not as organised and dutiful as they are expected to be. May be everybody finds the working atmosphere not helpful for doing the honest work honestly.
It is possible that the Forest Department was not prepared for the fire at Sundarbans, although it is destroying the forest time and again.