Over 600 keora and bain trees at a coastal mangrove forest in the district’s Chakoria upazila have been felled to make way for a shrimp enclosure.
Locals said some 50 labourers under supervision of Mohammad Ali Chowdhury, general secretary of a Badarkhali cooperative association, denuded the area in last five/six days.
They are now building earthen dams for shrimp farming.
Japanese green organisation Weska International planted the trees on khas and forest department land in 1992-93 and 2001. It developed the forest under its mangrove re-forestation programme.
Ubinig, a non-government organisation, worked with Weska to develop the forest and was in charge of looking after it.
With tree up to 14 feet high, the manmade forest was acting as a buffer against tidal surges.
Around 40,000 people of Badarkhali union, on the estuary of the Matamuhuri river, are deeply concerned that the trees that used to protect them from storms and waves are gone.
Environmentalists fear the absence of the mangrove forest would lead to severe environmental damage.
Around seven months back, Mohammad Ali and his men first marked off the area, leaving out a portion of the forest.
But around a week ago, they began a wholesale destruction of the vegetation, said witnesses.
Hamidul Haque Manik, Weska International’s Chakoria manger, blamed Badarkhali agricultural cooperative association for chopping down the trees.
Contacted, Mohammad Ali first denied the allegation, but later requested journalists not to report on the tree-felling.
Rafiqul Haque Titu, manager of Chakoria Ubinig, said he had informed the upazila administration when the cooperative’s men put a cordon around the forest area in June last year. But no action was taken.
Chakoria Upazila Nirbahi Officer Zakir Hossain said he did not know anything about the developments. His office would probe and take measures if it receives any complaint in this regard.
Rashedul Islam, Chakoria upazila assistant commissioner (land), said, there are no rules to allow clear-felling to build a shrimp farm.
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