According to the book ‘With the Wild Animals of Bengal’ there was once panthers at the Madhupur forest. Today, there are timber thieves, banana and rubber plantations, dacoits, a shooting range, and blaring speakers. It won’t be long before someone will need to write its obituary, writes
Hiking down the highway from Dhaka to Mymensingh and Tangail, trees line both sides of the road giving a semblance of abundance to the Madhupur forest. Monkeys venture out in small groups to steal bananas that are travelling on the back of vans, heading to different marketplaces.
The image of abundance is, however, an artificial front. A few steps inside the forest lies hundreds of hectares of barren land, dead roots sit in place where large trees once stood, while banana trees, pineapple trees and other fruit trees, cultivated for human consumption, have replaced the age-old indigenous trees of the forest.
Thousands of priceless and exotic trees at Madhupur have disappeared thanks to illegal tree-fellers and corrupt forest department officials. In the guise of social forestry, officials are planting trees which are affecting the ecological balance of the forest. A firing range in the middle of the forest creates noise pollution severely compromising the environment of the forest.
Most residents say that the forest is fading away and what stands there today is nothing compared to what it was even 20 years back. 62 years old Monjuri Rema from Jalchatra village said that the region was a luscious forest in 1988, however over the years timber thieves plundered the trees in the forest with the help of forest department officials. 'The native jungle has been replaced by barren lands and later types of plants unsuited to the environment were planted in the name of social forestry'.
Adivasi leaders, local villagers and environmentalists claim that inside the Madhupur Sal Forest, other plant species have made their way into the forest land under the euphemism of ‘social forestry’ but are all plantations in essence. Although the forest is made up of different plant species ranging from tall trees to dwarf bush foliage the introduction of unfamiliar plantations may not be suitable for the soil of a particular forest and hence affect the ecological balance.
As awareness of global issues such as climate change and the dire need for forest conservation grows, the local residents around Madhupur Forest have become more vocal in their protests against deforestation. They allege that with the help of forest department officials, vested interest groups are wiping out the forest drastically. These residents living in villages surrounding this once majestic forest claim that the illegal felling of trees is rampant.
The traditional sal forest has vanished in most parts and thousands of acres of the government protected Madhupur National Park has been destroyed by timber thieves who pay local forest officials to fell trees every night.
These areas now suffer the threat of extinction through forest encroachment and tree felling, but the crime rate has also increased at an alarming level. People from the villages are now scared to wander through the woods during the evenings for fear of muggings, murders and abductions, a frightfully frequent occurrence. They say that dacoits come from within the forest to stop local buses and tourist vehicles to steal all their valuables. These criminal activities also intimidate the local people and conservators thereby helping the tree fellers to continue with their crime to wipe out the forest.
Assistant Conservator of Forest in Madhupur, Rabindranath Odhikari reassures that although tree felling does occur, it does not occur at an alarming rate. ‘Tree felling is rampant around the border of Mymensingh and Tangail but not in any other area. We normally do not go in that area due to security reasons. Banana cultivation has dropped down after joint forces started patrolling some areas. But it is true that the 10 km strip road from Rasulpur to Dokhna area has deep forest starting from the area called Pochish Mile and there is considerable amount of robbery going on. Even I was assaulted while planting seeds and they broke my car window’.
Philip Gain, head of the Dhaka-based environmental rights NGO Society for the Environment and Human Development (SEHD) claims that the introduction of plantations, the monoculture of teak, rubber, eucalyptus and acacia has had horrendous consequences on these native forests. The ‘social forestry’ that was initiated in 1989-1990 was preceded by rubber monoculture that destroyed a significant part of the sal forest. This is one of the primary reasons of forest destruction.
Philip Gain, Adivasi leader Ajoy Mree who is the chairperson of Jayen Shahi Adivasi Unnayan Parisad, Habibur Rahman Chan Mia - a member of number nine Oronkhola Union Parisad and other local people believe that the new plantations in the name of social forestry is a farce and cannot contribute to the flora of the forest at all. In Bangladesh, monoculture plantations of teak, rubber, eucalyptus, acacia, pine and other plants are very visible in the public forestland. Termed as ‘simple plantation forestry’, it is not so simple, as it requires clear felling of native forests at the time of its establishment. Clear felling at harvest time is also a basic feature of simple plantation. This leads to catastrophic effects on the environment of native forests.
According to Ajoy Mree, the destruction of Madhupur Forest did not happen all of a sudden: The destruction was the result of bad short-sighted decisions over a number of years. It started with a rehabilitation project for 150 families in the local community around the forest area in 1962. During 1977 a firing range for the Bangladesh Air Force was built using 500 acres of forest land. Under Ershad’s government in 1986 rubber plantations were introduced using 4000 acres of forest land. In 1989 the government’s new ‘social forestry’ project was implemented thus quickening the pace at which the deforestation was occurring.
Bringing this rapid deforestation to an eventual halt will require immediate action. According to Mree, ‘all influential people and politicians have to pay heed. There needs to be more transparency within the forest department and officials need to be less corrupt. There needs to be more awareness about forestation and the importance of conservation among the local Bengalis, indigenous people along with the officials within the forest department and law enforcement agency, and most importantly, there needs to be immediate forest protection to prevent tree felling’.
He added that the native people used to live on a variety of mushrooms, medicinal plants and they used to collect dhup from sal trees and sell them. Other than that, the leaves of many trees were used to make decorative plates for serving food during festivals. Branches of trees were collected to use as fuel for cooking and also to make thatched houses. All of this has stopped now due to deforestation.
Furthermore, a controversial wall was planned around Madhupur National Park which will evict more than 6,000 adivasi people from their ancestral land and thousands more will be deprived of their traditional livelihood.
Another local villager, an environmentalist, requesting anonymity, blames the officials within the forest department and law enforcement agency for their indifference. In other forests, visitors are not allowed to blow whistles let alone have picnics with loud music blaring from speakers but everything is made possible in Madhupur National Park. The park is littered with candy wrappers and garbage. The firing range practices almost every week creating immense noise pollution also contributing to an ill-balanced ecology.
Experts believe the government needs to introduce a buffer zone around the Madhupur forest. The buffer zone, a barrier surrounding the forests where no human habitation would be allowed, provides more protection than a wall as the zone would consist of a large area where the forests thinned, and a wall is easily penetrable.
Villagers like Shekhar Mrong (42) and Md Jahur Ali (39) have heard of projects like Nishorgo in forests such as Lawachara, which is not only a forest conservation but a place that provides income generation to the native people by hiring them as ‘paid patrollers’ to protect against tree fellers. This additional income allows these people to initiate small businesses like weaving, handicrafts etc.
‘There is a dialogue with Nishorgo to start their project here. They have already started preparing maps using satellite images but I don’t know when their project is scheduled start’.
According to a Nishorgo handbook, the Madhupur Sal Forest, which has captured the cultural diversity of Bangladesh with members of Garo and Koch descent, endangered Capped Langur, the Wild Boar, Barking Deer, 11 types of mammals, 38 species of birds, four types of amphibians, seven reptiles and 176 species of plants within an area of 8,436 hectares is experiencing huge forest and animal loss every year.
This Madhupur Forest once contained rare animals like Panthers, as described in the book ‘With the Wild Animals of Bengal’ by Yusuf S Ahmad, who entered the Imperial Forest Service in December 1925. To many forest conservators, Madhupur might be a dying forest but if it can be conserved, our future generations will be able to enjoy a well balanced country. Maybe while walking through the hiking trails within the forest, we will be able to see birds chirping, apes brachiating and foot prints of exotic cats like the panthers, rather than barren lands will candy wrappers littered hither and thither.
Porabari is a village. It is situated about four kilometers west from Tangail town. Its sight is calm and quiet. The village was named Porabari because the house of a sweet maker businessman was burnt (Porabari means “burnt house”). Nobody can ascertain the name of the man who first made this sweet meat. It is known that a man named Dasarat was the first sweetmeat maker in this village. The Ghosh and Pal tribes were engaged in the sweet meat industry generation after generation.
From the old sweet makers and sweet traders it is known that once there was a launch ghat at Porabari. The bank of Dhaleshari is a branch river of the Jamuna. Steamers, launches and big cargoes anchored there. Men of different position and taste used to come to Porabari. Once, Porabari was a thriving business centre where men including luxurious living gathered all the time. The fame of the Porabari chom chom sweet is not a matter of recent years. It has been reigning for more than one and half centuries. The Porabari Chom Chom sweet was full of taste and juice as like as the honey of the bee hives. It is said that a man (Dasarat by name) or an unknown Thagore coming from Asam first started to make chom chom with the sweet water of Daleshary mixed with the thick milk of Porabari. It can be cited that the taste of chom chom is mainly dependent on the taste of the water of Porabari. The secrecy that lies behind the preparation of chom chom of Porabari is the water of Porabari.
