A vast area of forestland remained grabbed by different quarters for decades but the authorities took no effective measures to reclaim the land even after the change in government in early August.
The interim government, formed on August 8 after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime amid a student-led mass uprising on August 5, has failed to evict grabbers despite repeated calls from different quarters.
The chief conservator of forest Amin Hossain, however, claimed that they were now reclaiming grabbed forestland faster than they did earlier.
He said that, in the cases of grabbing involving political persons, the forest department could not play an appropriate role in the past, but now they were conducting drives to reclaim such grabbed land.
The forest department owns a total of 46,00,000 acres of land. The lands are either marked as 鈥榬eserved forests鈥� or 鈥榩rotected forests鈥�.
According to the latest and the lone countrywide survey by the forest department in 2021, at least 1,60,000 grabbers illegally occupied at least 2,56,000 acres of forestland since the country鈥檚 independence.
The forest department, between 2021 and June this year, reclaimed 31,000 acres of land from illegal grabbers mostly in Hill Tracts, Sylhet, Gazipur, Mymensingh and Tangail.
After the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime, the department reclaimed nearly 500 acres grabbed by the Awami League leaders.
Besides ruling party men during different governments, locally influential people and industrialists grabbed the forestland over the years which took a new dimension after 2010 when AL was in power.
Chittagong University鈥檚 forestry and environmental sciences professor Mohammed Al-Amin said that forestland was an unlocked land. 鈥業n a land-hungry country like Bangladesh, the forestland is more vulnerable. Forest coverage has been declining gradually.鈥�
鈥楶olitical power is very much integrated with this grabbing process. Sal forest is more vulnerable than other forests in the country,鈥� he said.
He blamed the lack of political will and the crisis of manpower and logistics for the inaction of the forest department.
鈥楥ertainly, some forest聽 department officials are involved in the unholy nexus with grabbers,鈥� he said.
Industries, resorts and farms are significant establishments on the grabbed forest land. Government institutes and places of worship were also constructed by grabbing forest land.
Amin Hossain said that they logged several thousand cases and sent eviction requests to the respective deputy commissioners鈥� offices but the DC offices took little measures.
He estimated that eviction requests to the DCs were sent to reclaim at least 250,000 acres of land.
After the fall of the AL government, the forest department reclaimed 200 acres of land grabbed by former environment minister Hasan Mahmud鈥檚 brother at Rangunia in Chattogram and 15 acres of land grabbed by former agriculture minister Mohammed Abdus Shahid in Moulvibazar.
On Wednesday, the forest department reclaimed 155.09 acres of land in Cox鈥檚 Bazar and Chattogram. The lands were grabbed by the Bangladesh Forest Industries Development Corporation.
The land was reclaimed after special directives from the environment, forest and climate change advisor Syeda Rizwana Hasan, officials said.
Forest officials said that 11,000 acres of forest land under Gazipur Circle were recorded as private property over the years.
The forest department also filed cases for the correction of the records.
Officials said that they could not conduct drives against the influential grabbers in the past one and a half decades due to political influence.
The forest department asked officials concerned to make a fresh list of grabbers as soon as possible to conduct fresh drives.
Owing to factors such as grabbing, over-exploitation, conversion of forest land into agricultural land, forest resources in Bangladesh have been continuously depleting in terms of both area and quality.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, between 1990 and 2015, Bangladesh annually lost 2,600 hectares of primary forest. Primary forest land gradually decreased from 1.494 million hectares in 1990 to 1.429 million hectares in 2015.
Society for Environment and Human Development executive director Philip Gain said that the forest department鈥檚 list of grabbers was not flawless.
He said that the names of many national minority people living traditionally in the forests were included in the grabbers鈥� list.
Urging the government to evict grabbers and reclaim grabbed forest land, he said that sal forest land was grabbed by industries while coastal forest land was grabbed by people for making shrimp enclosures due to the government鈥檚 wrong decision.
