Reports often appear in the press on the St. Martin's Island and how it, along with its rich biodiversity, is being destroyed by human actions. No doubt, the beautiful island has to be saved from the senseless acts of its human visitors and the thriving hotel and restaurant business to serve the sightseers visiting the island. As a result, the speck of 9 km long and 0.5 km wide island, some 9 km away in the south of Teknaf, the southernmost tip of Bangladesh, the St. Martin's is facing an existential threat. The first concern that comes to mind is if it is a coral island, as claimed by many, then it is already too late to save it.
A recent report says that some 3,500 to 4,000 tourists who visit the island every day drop 3,000 kilogrammes of single-use plastics. The plastic waste being indestructible is posing the worst kind of environmental threat to the island. Bulging crowd, light and sound emanating from the resorts, residential buildings, hotels, restaurants, etc., are scaring away the denizens of the island. Population of turtles, who lay eggs on the island, for instance, are being scared away. Stray dogs allegedly coming from the mainland eat the turtles' eggs. Other threats the island is facing, include oil and heavy metal pollution, sewage and chemical pollution from fertiliser runoff (from agricultural farms), algae and sea grass removal, destruction of mangrove, sand dunes and hills, overfishing, loss of habitat and sanctuary for marine life and so on. Environmentalists also say that sedimentation from construction, farming and deforestation blankets the 'corals reefs' and thereby smother the corals by depriving them of sunlight to photosynthesise the symbiotic algae they live on. And the plastic trash also destroys, some environmentalists believe, coral reef by blocking sunlight. And the sea turtles and other marine animals may eat plastic waste mistaking it for jellyfish.
The forest department in 1999 declared the St. Martin's Island an Ecologically Critical Area (ECA). Obviously, the objective of the declaration was to protect the island's biodiversity. In January 2021, the Environment ministry declared an area of 1,743 sq km near the St. Martin's Island in the Bay as the marine protected area in line with the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act. But these seem to be just on paper, because no one is seen to respect the declarations. Unless the government is strict about implementing its decisions to protect the island, nothing will change.
Meanwhile, it would be important to get the facts straight. Is the St. Martin's really a coral island?
The question arises because in the June 1, 2022 issue of a prestigious website and database on scientific publications named Science Direct, run by the Dutch publisher Elsevier carried a report titled, 'Mischaracteri-sation of sedimentary rocky reef as a coral reef in the economic valuation of St. Martin's Island, Bangladesh'. The scientific paper contests not only the popular belief, but also many environmentalists' position about the island. The issue needs to be cleared by local experts on the subject and let the public know the truth. If the St. Martin's Island is to be saved from the damage done to it by humans and other actors, its correct geomorphological status needs to be established first.
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