The biodiversity boundary of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, has been extended.
Experts think this move will help sustain and boost forest resources including wildlife, fisheries, and trees, reports UNB.
The government has imposed a ban on the collection of wild resources from areas designated as 'sanctuaries' in the forest.
The Forest Department has demarcated these sanctuary areas by colour-coding trees and blocking entrances to fishermen, Bawals, and Mowals.
The Sundarbans is the world's largest coastal mangrove forest, straddling the border of India and Bangladesh. The total area of the Sundarbans, in Bangare, is 6,017 sq km.
According to a new notification issued by the government, over half of Bangladesh’s Sundarbans is now designated as a sanctuary. This will go a long way toward protecting wildlife in the mangrove forest.
The 'sanctuary'-designated areas now comprise up to 317,950 hectares—over double the 139,699 hectares categorised as such two decades ago.
In 1996, the government granted a 139,699-hectare area of the forest sanctuary status, covering 23% of the total area of the forest.
Recently, the government issued a new notification on the expansion of sanctuary areas in different parts of the Sundarbans. Through this notification, another 178,260 hectares have been added to the existing sanctuary aggregate. That means over half of Bangladesh’s Sundarbans has sanctuary status.
Forest Department sources said of the additional 178,000-odd hectares falling under sanctuary, 91,693 hectares has been added to Sundarbans East division, in Sarankhola; 38,339 hectares to Sundarbans South division, inKhulna; and a total of 48,216 hectares area has been added to Sundarbans West division, in Satkhira.
Md Amir Hossain, forest conservationist of Khulna circle, said the government has banned the collection of forest resources from the sanctuary areas. This is to help increase the biodiversity of the forest including wildlife and trees.
The birth rates of wild animals ranging from the tiger to the deer, and all the birds and fish, will increase in the safe sanctuary, Amir Hossain predicted.
Md Mahmudul Hasan, divisional forest officer of Sundarbans East, said the Forest Department has delimited the Sundarbans’ sanctuary areas.
Placards and signboards will be hanged at different points within the next two months. Nobody will be able to enter the sanctuary areas to collect forest resources, he said.
Meanwhile, the “Sundarbans Protection” project has been proposed, and is awaiting approval by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec). This project will help to engage people near the forest in alternative employment that is not dependent on the depletion of the forest's resources, he further said.
Prof Mahmud Hossain at the forestry and wood technology department of Khulna University said expanding the sanctuary is good news for the Sundarbans as it will reduce "human pressure on the forest."
An end to the extraction of its resources is expected to precipitate a boon for the Sundarbans’ wildlife populations, trees, and water resources. The government will be faced with the challenge of providing alternative employment for the people who are dependent on the forest resources.
However, forest-dependent traders, fishermen, Bawals, and Mowals are not happy with the further expansion of the protected area.
They said they already faced extreme poverty, when the sanctuary area of the Sundarbans was last expanded.
Jalal Mollah, a fish trader of Sarankhola upazila, said he has no business due to the expansion of the sanctuary area in the Sundarbans. He and his boatload of fishermen could not catch anything with their nets as most of the rivers in the upazila are protected.
A good number of fishermen have become unemployed and now they are searching for alternative employment, he added.
Alamin Munshi of Khurialkhali village, and Phul Mia of Sarankhola village, relayed how they struggle to support their families; the fishing ban in expanded protected areas has stranded them with their fishing boats. .
Their grievance, is not that large swathes of forest are being closed off to them, but rather, thatno alternative employment has been provided. The fishermen and others like them, who depend on the forest’s resources, now lack the means to live.