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Download PDF The hotels and restaurants that sprang up in the recent past on St Martin’s Island, one of the ecologically critical areas (ECA) in the country, have been operating without any official approval.
According to the law, building of any structure and carrying out any activity that might pollute the environment or harm the flora and fauna in an ECA are strictly prohibited.
However, the unauthorised structures mushroomed on St Martin’s over the years with law enforcers and government agencies turning a blind eye to the violation.
Concerned about the preservation of biodiversity of the island, the present government is planning to introduce a guideline for building environment-friendly structures on the island, said sources.
A total of 33 privately owned hotels and restaurants are currently doing business on St Martin’s — a 3.34-square-kilometre island with only 5,000 inhabitants. Most of these businesses opened up in last eight years — soon after the government decided to establish a marine park on the country’s lone coral island for the conservation of marine bio-diversity.
This year, on September 29, director of Department of Environment (DoE), Chittagong Division, in a letter said the DoE had never given approval to any hotel or restaurant to operate on the island.
Considering its rich natural biodiversity, the government in a gazette notification declared Saint Martin’s an ecologically critical area on April 19, 1999. As a first step to establishing a marine park there, on July 29, the government issued another gazette notification prohibiting activities destructive to the flora and fauna of the island. Extraction of coral, seashell and conch, felling of trees and building structures were declared restricted in the gazette.
The government later undertook a project to conserve the biodiversity, establish a marine park and develop ecotourism facilities on the island.
After years of irregularities, absence of proper monitoring and spending a staggering Tk 13 crore, the project turned out to be a failure.
As a result, growing number of tourists are polluting and damaging the natural habitats of numerous rare species on the island, the sources added.
Commenting on the unauthorised structures on St Martin’s, Syeda Rizwana Hossain, director of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers’ Association (Bela), said according to the gazette issued by the government, construction of any hotel or restaurant within the ECA is prohibited.
“It’s a violation of Sections 5 and 12 of Environment Protection Act. Violators could be punished with a maximum of ten years imprisonment and additional Tk 10 lakh in fine,” she added.
Thousands of tourists are thronging St Martin’s Island every year for its crystal clear blue seawaters, corals, shells, conch and giant crabs.
According to Saint Martin’s Hotel Owners’ Association sources, not less than 60,000 people visited the island last year.
The objective of the government-promoted ecotourism project was to ensure an undisturbed habitat for the flora and fauna of the island.
With the project unimplemented and tourists multiplying every year, tourists, the 5,000 locals and 1,000 Rohingya refugees, all are increasingly destroying the island’s environment, especially the natural environment of endangered green turtles and Olive Ridley turtles to such an extent that the turtles no longer come to the island to lay their eggs.
“Sea turtles, one of the major indicators of the health of sea, are not getting the suitable environment for laying eggs. Besides, the number of mother turtles is decreasing every year. It will be harmful for our sea as the turtles help keep the sea environment clean,” said a government official working at forest and environment ministry.
According to a government report, most of the residential houses and all but four hotels and restaurants on the island do not use ring-slab toilets. Raw sewage and other wastes are discharged in the open environment instead.
In a recent survey conducted by Village Education Resource Center (Verc), a non-government organisation, the presence of coliform bacteria, a serious contaminant when found in food or drinking water, was detected in the groundwater of St Martin’s. The presence of the bacteria was detected to be ten times higher than Bangladesh standard.
The same report prepared by the government listed the following as hotels doing business on the island: Seemana Periye, Pacific Resort, Hotel Obokash, Samudra Bilash (non-commercial, established by novelist Humayun Ahmed), Coral Reef, Ocean View, Srabani Bilash, Swapno Probal, Hotel Shaibal-1, Saibal-2, Bay of Bengal Guesthouse, Holiday Home, Blue Marine Resort, Prasad Paradise, Prince Heaven, Riyad Guest, Sea Heart, Island Resort and Neel Doriya.
Restaurants listed in the report are Asma Hotel, Keyari Marzan, Sea Scent Comilla, Sonar Tori, Shaheena, Hotel Al Amin, Saint Martin’s Tourism Park, The Royal Restora, Hazi Salam Tourist Park, Allah’r Daan and Marine Drop.
The first commercial business on the island was founded in 1995.
When asked if the business owners on the island are required to acquire any government approval or follow any guideline, president of Saint Martin’s Hotel Owners’ Association Shiblul Azam Koreshi said, “Nobody told us about any approval or provided any guideline for building structures in an ECA.”
November 1st, 2007 at 3:40 pm
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