The Forest Department has been accused of cutting down about 1,200 orange trees belonging to one family during an eviction drive in the Rajkandi reserved forest in Kamalganj, Moulvibazar. The family says that after paying a monthly bribe for a long time, it stopped because of financial hardship, and its orchard was destroyed just before the trees were due to fruit.

The Forest Department says fruit orchards on reserved forest land are wholly illegal and the eviction was carried out in accordance with the law.

The four-hour drive was carried out jointly by the Forest Department, the upazila administration and Kamalganj police in the Adampur beat on Thursday, 16 July, in the presence of the Kamalganj assistant commissioner (land). During the drive about five acres of reserved forest land under Section 20 in the Rajkandi range were recovered from occupation by local influential people.

Local people ask why, if the orchard was illegal, no action was taken when it was planted or within the first year or two. Why were the trees allowed to grow for eight years, and why was the eviction carried out just as they were fruiting?

The family alleges that from the beginning it had been paying money regularly to the forest beat officer, but this time, because of financial difficulties at home, it could not pay, and the whole orchard was cut down.

The orchard's owner, Mosammat Salma Begum, said: "We spent Tk 15 lakh to Tk 20 lakh building this orchard over eight years. It was not our own money; we took loans at high interest from various NGOs and invested them here. We thought we would repay the loans by selling this year's fruit. But the Forest Department has finished us. Even if they had locked us in our house and burned us alive, it would not have hurt this much. Where will we go now with this debt? How will we repay it?"

Salma Begum and her husband, Alim Ulla, said they spent eight years building an orchard of orange, papaya and bottle gourd on about three acres of forest land, investing about Tk 15 lakh to Tk 20 lakh in NGO loans. They say they planned to sell Tk 25 lakh to Tk 26 lakh worth of fruit in about three months' time and repay a large part of the loans, but that dream was shattered in a moment by the drive.

Local people call the drive vindictive. They say that although it was carried out in the name of recovering government land, personal revenge lay behind it: a few days earlier, reports of alleged lease trading and bribe-taking by the Forest Department had appeared in various media, and the family was targeted out of that anger.

They claim some dishonest forest officials have for a long time let various people use forest land for betel leaf and jhum cultivation, unofficially and in exchange for money, in the name of afforestation. No drive has been carried out on those lands; only this family's orchard was destroyed.

It is also alleged that those taking part in the drive did not stop at cutting trees but broke the family's only irrigation pump, so that the remaining trees could not be kept alive.

On a visit, branches of felled orange trees lay scattered all around. Salma Begum and her family sat silent in the middle of the ruined orchard, facing deep uncertainty over loan instalments, their household's future and their livelihood.

Asked about the allegations, Pritam Barua, assistant conservator of forests and range officer of the Rajkandi range, said any occupation inside a reserved forest, whether for betel leaf, orange or pineapple, is completely unacceptable and illegal, and the Forest Department's eviction work to free forest land is always ongoing.

"This is an occupation, whether it is eight years old or ten, however many years, it is illegal," he said. "The Forest Department is always determined to evict any kind of occupation. We are gradually trying to free all the occupied land under the Rajkandi range. We carry out several such eviction drives every month."

He gave no direct answer to the question of how an orchard could be legal for eight years while money was being paid, and become illegal overnight once the payments stopped.

Sylhet divisional forest officer Mohammad Abdur Rahman said that when the villager system was first introduced around 1920, each family was given land only for growing paddy in the valleys (low land). Forest law has no provision allowing fruit orchards on hills or hillocks, and there is no basis for when or by whom permission to plant this orchard was given.

He said the orchard was cut down and the land recovered under the policy that there will be no fruit orchards on forest land, which will instead be afforested. If anyone in the Forest Department is involved in these irregularities, action will be taken once evidence is found, he said.

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