Stop destructing natural forest reserves
The natural forest reserves of the country have been facing highest deforestation due to the Forest Department’s (DoF) repeated failure to play its role, mainly due to irregularities in forest management.
Studies have found conversion of forests to agriculture and scrublands, which indicate indiscriminate cutting of trees.
Several assessments, cited in government documents have also found weak enforcement of forest laws, insufficient demarcation of forest boundaries; non-sustainable forest management and growing demand of land for industrial and infrastructural development to be the major causes of rampant deforestation.
Some sources pointed out that the plundering of forest resources was done mainly by government officials and unscrupulous local inhabitants.
In recent years, the Rohingya refugees have destroyed a vast forest area in Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar and Badarban districts.
For that reason, the overall wildlife population has been massively reduced in the region.
A study titled ‘Development of National Database on Long-Term Deforestation 1930-2014 in Bangladesh’ had revealed the negative change in the country’s forest canopy density.
It said, dense forests and open forests occupied 51.3 per cent and 48.7 per cent respectively of total forest area in 1975.
The ratio changed in 2014 with dense forests at 46 per cent and open forest at 53 per cent, an indication of forest degradation.
This percentage is excluding the hundreds of acres of forests cleaned up for sheltering the Rohingya refugees.
Over the past decades DoF had almost no control over the hill forests. This must be stopped before Bangladesh becomes completely deforested.
Against the countrywide demand for 25 per cent forest, Bangladesh now has less than 10 per cent. If it is needed, Jhum cultivation in the hills should be stopped.
We have seen how rampant deforestation has hugely affected the country’s overall weather conditions.
Most importantly the forest acts must be enforced countrywide to stop destruction of forests.
