Felling of trees
For decades, illegal loggers have been hacking away at the different forests of the country while facing few penalties. A picture published in this newspaper on Friday shows how in Bandarban district illegally felled trees are being gathered by miscreants. There are laws against illegal logging in Bangladesh. However, if any action is taken at all in this regard it is the petty criminals who are arrested. We believe that to be effective, law enforcement needs to look past low-level criminals and look at where the profits from illegal logging go. In Bangladesh it is mainly unscrupulous timber merchants and brickfield owners who are responsible for this phenomenon. Despite compelling evidence showing that illegal logging is going on, most forest crimes go undetected, unreported, or are ignored. Organised crime networks behind large-scale illegal logging have links to corruption at various levels of the government.
In addition, estimates of criminal proceeds generated by forest crimes do not capture their enormous environmental, economic and societal costs biodiversity threats, increased carbon emissions and undermined livelihoods of rural peoples, with organised crime profiting at the expense of the poor. Illegal logging has increased erosion, landslides, and even sent felled trees floating down rivers damaging bridges and dams. For the last three decades denuding of our forest cover is going on at the rate of 2.1 per cent annually. For maintaining environmental balance, we need 20 per cent of forest cover of the total land. But in reality it is now only nine per cent. The situation will go from bad to worse, if urgent action is not taken to reverse the loss and damage. Even the limited forest resources are being destroyed through indiscriminate felling of trees which must be stopped for a healthy ecosystem.
Lack of political will and non-enforcement of the law are contributing to reduction of forests. Bangladesh has many good policies for environment protection, but unfortunately they are not being implemented. If we want to stop deforestation, we must concentrate on implementing such policies properly. Any forestation programme will not be able to bring the desired result if illegal logging continues without check. Theft of roadside trees is also rampant in many places.
As the felled trees mostly go to the brick-kilns and are used for making of furniture, the government must take two certain steps. One, it has to oblige the brick kilns owners to follow the official rule for burning bricks, using gas or coal, not wood. On the other hand, it should encourage use of artificial wood substitutes for furniture making.
