Once a sanctuary of nature, it has become a ship-breaking yard with a multi-storey building, some artificially dug-up ponds and barbed-wire fences, in Sitakunda of Chattogram.
Around 5,000 trees have been felled to convert five acres of mangrove forest into this ship-breaking yard.
The authorities of the newly-constructed yard, Kohinoor Steel, have fallen the trees without obtaining permission from the Forest Department, which is illegal under Forest Products Transit Rules-2011.
According to Section 5 of the Rule, permission must be obtained from the divisional forest officer (DFO) for cutting trees from any government land.
Following this, the Forest Department filed three cases against officials of Kohinoor Steel recently.
According to the department, the place was part of the 400-acre mangrove forest created in 1983-1984 by the Coastal Forest Division to protect the locality from natural disasters.
The district administration leased out the 5-acre land to the yard authority on February 14 last year.
However, there is an ownership dispute between the district administration and the forest department over the leased land.
For this, the forest department sent several letters to the deputy commissioner to cancel the lease.
No one can lease out the land as it is a notified forest land. However, the district administration leased the land to Kohinoor Steel without informing us.
However, the district administration announced last month that they cancelled the lease agreement with Kohinoor Steel amid environmental criticism.
While Kohinoor Akhtar is the owner of Kohinoor Steel on paper, her husband Abul Kashem alias Kashem Raja is constructing the yard in reality.
Kashem Raja has been made one of the accused in the forest department’s case. Contacted recently, he refused to comment citing critical health conditions.
The experts have warned that despite the cancellation of the lease, the damage has already been done as many trees have been felled. The ecological balance of the area is highly compromised.
We call on the government to come up with reforestation in the area amid the growing incidence of natural disasters.
