Honey, wax collection from Eastern Sundarbans surpassed the target

Prof. ABM. Moosharraf Husain, Bagerhat :

The collection of honey and wax from the Eastern Sundarbans surpassed the target fixed by the Forest Department for the year of -2023.

Around Tk,19 lakh revenue has been collected from Sundarbans , according to a report received here.

It is learnt from a source of Forest Departmen,t Sundabans Unit, it was declared earlier that the collection of honey will be started from the 15th March, 2023.

But the Mawals (honey collectors) did not go to the forest apprehending that at that time honey will not be available there.

So, the Mawals entered into the forest from the 1st April, 2023 and stayed there till the 30th June and collected the honey and wax after moving from one place to another.

Mawal Mahabul Hossain of village Bogi under Sharankhola Upazila and Mawal Ratan Hawladar of Sharankhola village told that as this year the weather was favorable we were able to collect honey more than our expectations.

They added, we have been collecting honey from Sundarbans for long 25/26 years and every year we spent TK.50/60 thousand in order to collect honey from the deep forest. But in the last year we failed to collect honey as per our expectations. So, they incurred a heavy loss.

This year they were able to make up their losses to some extent following the collection of honey more than their expectations.

Muhammad Belayet Hossain, DFO (Divisional Forest Officer), the Eastern Division of Sundarbans (in Bagerhat district) told, this year some 862 quintals honey was collected as against the target 8 hundred quintals fixed by the forest department and the forest department earned a sum of Tk.13 lakh 80 thousand 8 hundred while some 258 quintals wax was collected as against the target 250 quintals fixed by the forest department and the forest department earned a some of Tk.5 lakh 69 thousand 5 hundred 80 from this sector.

The DFO also added, this year the weather was very favorable and flowers were blossomed in time and keeping the observation of the forest guards on the forest the Mawals were able to collect honey and wax more than their expectations