IN an overnight destruction on July 3, a group of local influential people felled 15,000 trees on a vast 40-acre forest belt near Sonaichhari coast in Sitakunda. In the name of developing five more ship-breaking yards, they employed over 500 labourers to raze the greens in a single day, remaining completely oblivious about the threat it poses to the coastal embankment. The trees, mostly Keura and Bain, worth over Tk one crore, were the natural guard against calamities in an area that has been badly ravaged by the cyclone Aila. Once the plunder of the greens was over, the forest department thought it time to fight a legal battle.

Photo: Zobaer Hossain Sikder