The forest department is focused more on generating revenue rather than protecting wildlife, including elephants that are slowly dying out, an independent shadow investigation has found.
The government body responsible for the protection of elephants countrywide played a silent role in the death of approximately 34 Asian elephants around the country, according to the investigation report released during a media call on Tuesday.
A concerted effort by 33 environmental organizations, the Bangladesh Nature Conservation Alliance (BNCA) recently conducted a shadow investigation into the elephant deaths following the rampant deaths of elephants over a period of four months in 2021.
The probe was carried out at Cox’s Bazar and Sherpur, two prime corridors for elephant movements in the country.
According to the report, around 40 elephants are stranded in about 100 acres of land due to the destruction of elephant corridors and habitats in the area.
Moreover, more than half of the 13,065 acres of forest land in the Panerchhara and Dhoyapalang ranges of the Cox's Bazar South Forest Division have been illegally occupied even though the official record speaks of the occupied land being 1,202 acres.
“The DoF has continuously failed to protect forests, forest lands and wildlife,” BNCA convener and environment scientist Professor Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumdar told the media.
“Now the forests have become a commercial venture and the DoF is instigating this effort while taking up projects like safari parks to make them tourism spots, when their main mandate is to protect wildlife, not go for revenue generation,” he added.
“With a crisis of safe habitats, food and water intensifying, these elephants are attacking people's homes and farms almost every day out of helplessness,” he said, adding that as a result, the elephant-human conflict in the area had been increasing everyday to the point of leading to the slaughter of the elephants.
The investigation found that on November 15, 2021, an elephant was electrocuted in Panerchhara range’s Tulabagan area.
While a case was filed with Ramu police under the Wildlife Conservation Act, the charges were dropped after the accused colluded with a forest department official, the report said.
On the other hand, an investigation in Srivardi and Jhenaigati areas of Sherpur found that a large number of people were living in the forests illegally. There people have a predominantly anti-elephant attitude.
On November 9, 2021, an elephant was electrocuted in Sherpur. The animal’s death initially led to electric supply being cut off from the poles.
However, numerous electricity poles have now been installed in the areas surrounding protected forest lands. The rural board has not cut off supply despite the forest department writing to them several times.
“Although the forest of Sherpur is mostly covered with eucalyptus trees, it was found that some indigenous plants have been afforested as part of a project,” the report said.
“This has increased the presence of elephants in the forest which proves that elephants will not go for human settlements if their homes are not destroyed,” it added.
The forum praised the effort of the range officer of the Sherpur forest division. However, the lack of manpower and resources has made the Department of Forest (DoF) helpless owing to the influence of powerful people.
At the same time, an unpaid “elephant response team” has resulted in a failure to protect the elephants.
Moreover, Rashed-ul-Majid, a member of the investigation team, revealed that elephants were killed inside the elephant corridor in Cox's Bazar.
Elephant movement is being hampered by marine drive, cantonment and the Rohingya refugee camps, he said.
The forum has pointed out eleven demands, including conducting a proper investigation into the deaths of elephants by the crime investigation department (CID) or police bureau of investigation (PBI). At the same time, it has demanded that illegal electricity connection be severed in the reserve forest area and illegally settled people be evicted.
