Environmentalists and rights activists expressed deep concern over hill and tree cutting, illegal encroachment of forest land and destruction of biodiversity at Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary in Chattogram.
They formed the human chain on the Arakan Road adjacent to Chunti Forest Office at Lohagara Upazila in Chattogram on Monday (March 11) demanding exemplary punishment of those involved in hill cutting, felling of trees and biodiversity destruction.
‘Dhoritri Rokkhay Amra (We for Protecting the Planet- Dhora)’ and ‘Chunati Rakshaye Amara’ jointly arranged the programme.
Sharif Jamil, member secretary of Dhora and convener of Waterkeepers Bangladesh; spoke at the human chain programme as the chief guest with Sanjida Rahman, coordinator of ‘Chunati Rakshaye Amara’ and member of Dhora; in the chair.
It was addressed, among others, by Abdul Karim Chowdhury Kim, member of convening committee of Dhora; Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, convener of Cox’s Bazar unit of Dhora; freedom fighter Syed Abdul Mabud, Fazle Elahi, Masud Hossain Siddiqui and Iqbal Faruk.
The speakers of the human chairman programme criticised the inaction and corruption of government agencies when the forest resources and biodiversity are being destroyed in Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary and commercial activities, hill cutting and wildlife poaching are going inside the reserved forest.
In the speech, Sharif Jamil said that this forest is one of the rare and rich wildlife sanctuaries of Bangladesh and is inhabitant of Asian elephants. Railway line has been constructed through the Chunti Sanctuary, Bakkhali coal-fired power plant is within the 5 km of this forest and the Matarbari coal-fired power plant is within 20 km of the forest. The people of Chunati have now come forward to save the sanctuary. “All the authorities concerned must be brought under transparent investigation and punishment,” he said.
Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary is an IUCN Category IV sanctuary which consists of nearly 8000 acres of forest land located in Chattogram.
Once this sanctuary held extensive tropical mixed evergreen forest, but now most of this has been degraded. The sanctuary is being eyed by greedy encroachers.
Some encroachers, who are known as locally influential, have wiped out much of the forest area in the last couple of years in various ways. These include cutting down trees, razing hillocks, lifting sand, and thus making the area barren. This destruction has endangered the Asian elephants and other species.