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Rainforest protectors under threat

Hired goons chase, assault whistleblowers in Srimangal

MORSHED AU KHAN, back from Kalenga, Srimangal
As soon as we arrived in Kalenga from Srimangal. after 10 kilometres of off-roading the day after Eid, a few eyebrows were quickly raised in the small bazaar. Half a dozen people hanging around the forest office of the Kalenga reserve forest turned away and vanished.
"We have been warned [by the foresters] not to talk to any reporter or photographer. If we ignore their warnings they said they would evict us from our homesteads on forest land," said a man in his late 40 s refusing to identify himself fearing reprisal.
The foresters' sudden rage, according to local people in Kalenga. was a direct outcome of an elaborate report published in The Daily Star on November 25 revealing how some of the forest officials with their local goons were involved in depleting one of the most beautiful rainforests of the country. The Kalenga and the conjoined Rema forests cover an area of 1,795 hectares. It is the largest rainforest in the country and hosts rare mammals, birds and trees and plants.
Kalenga and adjacent forest areas are so remote that official monitoring from outside is virtually non-existent. The forest beat officials stationed there not only enjoy total jurisdiction over the forest but also over the Bangalee and tribal settlers who live in small patches of land that belong to the reserve.
The report published in this paper enraged the foresters so much that they immediately launched a find-and-punish campaign for the whistle blowers, who helped compile the report Over the last week, several men were chased and roughed up by the goons unleashed by the foresters.
In the dark of the night we visited Abdur Rashid suffering from multiple injuries. Rashid said years ago he survived on stealing forest resources but gradually realised how important the forest was and vowed to protect it. The day before we arrived, he was guarding his paddy field from birds and monkeys. He challenged a gang of loggers who were taking away six logs. Rashid was brutally beaten up by the gang and then dragged to the forest office, where he was chained and detained overnight.
"I was tortured throughout the night and repeatedly blamed for inviting journalists into the area," said Rashid, who was in pain lyingon the bed in his hut.
An elderly resident of Kalenga said urgent measures are needed to protect the rainforest from these greedy gangs in and around the forest office. "Majority of the people here want the forest to survive but they are unable to lodge any protest against the atrocities of foresters and their local connections," he said, adding that rampant logging, extracting firewood in great quantities by chopping down smaller plants and trees continue unabated.
On Tuesday, tipped off by some local people the local Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) personnel recovered eleven logs from Sonbari area of the forest and handed them over to the Forest Office. BDR personnel said whenever (hey set out on patrol, thieves are warned of their movements over mobile phones.
"We could not arrest anybody as they fled the area leaving behind the chopped down trees," said the BDR personnel at Kalenga.
The technique used by the criminals for hiding illegal logging is widely known in the area. Local people said as soon as trees are felled and taken away, scores of people are employed within a day or two to dig out the stumps and cover the area. According to sources in Kalenga, on Wednesday the foresters employed scores of people and deployed them in Sonbari area to do a similar job.
As we went around the forest we met scores of men and women of Hpra tribe working in the fields harvesting paddy. They said the forest is set to disappear within years if theft of trees is not prevented now.
"We have lived in this forest for generations but we are totally helpless before these gangs who regularly enter the forest and make away with trees
chopped into three feet long logs to! facilitate transportation," said Khomen Dev Barma from Sonbari.
Along the tracks over an area of about 10 kilometres that we walked, we saw countless number of stumps and traces of large trees. In one house in Devrabari we found a freshly felled tree with a diameter of about two and a half feet. In die same house we found a large bundle of freshly chopped smaller trees.
Khomen told us that the forest department has filed hundreds of cases against hundreds of people in the area. There are instances of 10 cases filed against one individual in the area.
"But the problem is cases against these individuals make things even worse for the forest. Obviously these people need more money to fight those cases and are forced to plunder the forest. I can tell you this is a vicious cycle of corruption," Khomen said.
The headman of Devrabari, Moni Dev Banna, said under the Habiganj-2 range there are four reserve forests known as Kalenga, Rema, Rashidpur and Sonbari.
"They have not left any trace of forest in Rashidpur and Kalenga is on the verge of disappearing," Moni Dev Banna said. The fate of about 500 Tipras is now uncertain, he added.
In Kalenga, Chairman of Ranigaon Union Nurul Munim Chowdhury, also (he president of the forest Co-management Committee, said a. USAID funded project called Nisharga, later known as IPEC, was launched to rehabilitate people who indulged in depleting forest resources. He admitted the failure of the project.
Lots of trees were uprooted in a cyclone last year. The problem started when the government issued permission to auction those trees," he said.
According to Nurul Munim Chowdhury, as soon as the news of the auction spread, scores of tractors started arriving in the area. The forest suffered an irreparable loss at the lime when huge number of priced trees were felled and taken away in. broad daylight under the cover of auction.
"In our last meeting I clearly notified Chunarughat upazila administration dial every day the forest in Boiragipunji was being ruined with up to 10 trucks laden with timber and firewood leaving the area," hesaid.