MOULVIBAZAR, July 19: It takes illegal loggers only 35 minutes to smuggle a tree out of Lawachhara reserve forest -- five minutes to cut it down and 30 minutes to transport it out of the area.
'The way illegal loggers are smuggling out trees from the forest, there will be no woods at Lawachhara in the next 10 years', feared a forest official of Srimangal range on Thursday.
'They come in groups; they are experts in cutting down trees. They have almost free access to the forest. If we guard one side with our limited manpower, they sneak in from the other side', he said.
The illegal loggers have the advantage of familiarity with everything in the forest. Some of them are members of the so-called 'forest patrol', formed to protect the woods. In many cases forest workers and officials are also involved in the illegal logging.
The 'forest patrol' was formed by the Nisharga [nature] support project with the help of 40 reformed thieves recruited from the surroundings in 2004 with the hope that they would protect the forest if they were paid enough and treated properly, said a forest official.
'The result was good initially and illegal logging decreased. Each member of the patrol got Tk 2,250 as monthly salary. But it soon turned out that most of the thieves had not been reformed.
They have returned to their old business of illegal logging', he said. It is true that in recent times salaries for the members of the patrol have become irregular because of fund constraints. 'But even when they were paid regularly, some of them were caught red-handed while smuggling logs out', said the official.
The forest ranger of Moulvibazar Wildlife Range, Srimangal, Fazlul Haque, said that they had seized some 10,000cft of logs worth around Tk 1 crore and 15-20 cars in the last one year from the illegal loggers. 'We suspect a huge amount of wood has been smuggled out. It is difficult to patrol the entire forest as we have limited manpower', he said.
He said that the loggers target mainly Garjan, Chaplaish and Jarul trees. He said that the members of the patrol were not allowed into the forest following allegations of illegal logging against them. 'They are no longer allowed into the forest. Orders have been issued to catch them if they enter the forest. But they care little about the order and even threaten the forest workers', he said.
Shitesh Ranjan Dev, a resident of Srimangal who has worked extensively in Lawachhara forest, was also critical about the 40 thieves-turned- guards.
'It is painful the way the forest is losing its trees. A powerful nexus is active in destroying the forest,' said Shatish, a critic of the USAID-funded Nisharga support project of the forest and environment ministry. 'Illegal logging in the forest is more dangerous than the seismic survey being conducted by Chevron in the forest', he observed.
Rafiqur Rahman, chairman of co-management committee of the Nisharga project, however, said that they had already taken action against the members of the patrol involved in illegal logging. 'All members of the patrol party should not be blamed. Illegal logging in the forest has been reduced by 70 per cent over the last few years', he claimed.
Professor Anwarul Islam of the zoology department at Dhaka University said that illegal logging in the forest was depriving the wildlife of the sources of their food in the forest -- a habitat for many endangered species. 'The forest department should take immediate steps to count the trees and stop logging', he said.
'The forest is losing trees every day. If illegal logging continues, we will not see any forest at Lawachhara in 10 years,' he said echoing the comments of a forest official.
