The voluntary environmental organisation "Environment People" has written a letter seeking a halt to projects building an open prison and a road on protected forest land rich in hills, hillocks, waterfalls and streams in Ukhiya and Ramu, Cox's Bazar. The letter went to 18 government officials, including the secretaries of the land ministry, the Security Services Division of the home ministry, and the environment, forest and climate change ministry.

On Sunday (18 September) the letters were posted to officials of 18 offices, demanding a halt to projects on protected and reserved forest land and the cancellation of leases on all categories of forest land.

Besides the three secretaries, the letter went to the inspector general of prisons, the director general of the Department of Environment, the chief conservator of forests, the chief engineer of the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), the divisional commissioner, the chairman of the Cox's Bazar Development Authority, the Cox's Bazar deputy commissioner, the conservator of forests in Chattogram, the LGED executive engineer in Cox's Bazar, the upazila nirbahi officers of Ukhiya and Ramu, the assistant commissioners (land) of Ukhiya and Ramu, the director of the Department of Environment in Cox's Bazar and the divisional forest officer of the Cox's Bazar South Forest Division.

The letter says the government declared hill and hillock land in Paglirbil mouza of Ukhiya upazila, including RS plot 602 and others, protected forest by gazette notification in 1935, and the Forest Department has since planted and managed it. But the land ministry has leased 160 acres of this hill-category protected forest to the Department of Prisons to build an "open prison", and the prison authority is now marking the boundary. The area is a forest of more than 100,000 large and small trees of species including boilam, garjan, jam, telsur, chapalish, akashmoni, gamari, achargol, dumur, mos, koroi, batna, bhadi, bohera and bot. It is also home to Asian elephants, pythons, deer, monkeys, jackals, snakes, porcupines, pigs and other wildlife and birds.

The letter adds that the LGED has taken up construction of a five-kilometre link road through reserved forest in Ramu, from the Shaheed ATM Zafar Alam Multidiscipline Academy to the Marine Drive. This too is a rich forest and reserved forest land.

Expressing deep concern, the organisation said that if an "open prison" and a road are built on this forest land full of hills, streams, wildlife and biodiversity, the forest will be wiped out, the wide forests around it will be put at risk and the natural ecosystem will be endangered.

The letter also demands that projects on reserved and protected forest land be halted, that the land not be leased to anyone, that illegal structures be evicted and that the necessary steps be taken to conserve all categories of forest land.

Rashedul Majid, chief executive of Environment People, said thousands of acres of forest in Ukhiya-Teknaf have already been destroyed because of the Rohingyas. If a road is cut through reserved forest in the name of transport and an open prison is built as well, the forest will be indiscriminately cleared, forest land grabbed, elephant ranges and wildlife habitats damaged, and the area's environment and ecology seriously threatened. "We are worried about this, which is why we have written to the officials concerned about conserving protected and reserved forest land."

He also urged that environmental damage be given special consideration before development projects are taken up in the Cox's Bazar region, to tackle the risk.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.