Bangladesh wildlife sanctuary continues to lose primary forest
Bangladesh wildlife sanctuary continues to lose primary forest
Shreya Dasgupta, Mongabay
July 24, 2024
Primary forests inside Pablakhali Wildlife Sanctuary, one of Bangladesh’s
largest protected areas, continue to get cleared, recent satellite data
show.
The tropical evergreen and semi-evergreen forests of Pablakhali have
historically been home to rare and threatened species such as Asian
elephants (Elephas maximus), clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa), sloth
bears (Melursus ursinus), western hoolock gibbons (Hylobates hoolock),
tigers (Panthera tigris), great hornbills (Buceros bicornis) and
white-winged ducks (Cairina scutulata).
However, from 2002 to 2023, Pablakhali lost nearly 800 hectares (2,000
acres), around 9%, of its primary forest, according to satellite data
collated by the University of Maryland and visualized on the Global Forest
Watch (GFW) monitoring platform.
This spate of forest loss seems to be continuing. Preliminary satellite
data on GFW show that from January to July 2024, there was further
deforestation within one of the last remnants of primary forests, located
in the park’s north.
Mongabay couldn’t confirm reasons for this latest forest loss. However,
deforestation within the sanctuary is well-acknowledged in various studies
and reports.
The rugged mountains of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where Pablakhali is
located, have traditionally been home to numerous ethnic communities and
Indigenous tribes. After Bangladesh became independent in 1971, the region
saw local armed conflict, with the ethnic communities demanding a sovereign
state.
It was after the Bangladesh government signed a peace accord with the
communities in 1997 that large-scale deforestation started, M. Monirul H.
Khan, chair of the zoology department at Jahangirnagar University, told
Mongabay in an email. “Prior to that it was very difficult to extract
logs/timber from the forest.”
There’s also been increased migration of people from the plains into the
hills, researchers say, leading to an expansion of jhum, or shifting
cultivation. In this traditional farming method, farmers burn down a patch
of forest to grow crops. After harvest, they move to a new area, allowing
the older field to rest and regenerate into forest.
It’s not just that jhum has expanded. The interval between each jhum cycle
has also shrunk over the past two or three decades, researcher Mamunul
Hoque Khan wrote in his 2013 Ph.D. thesis. This gives no time for the
sloping terrain here to stabilize, leading to soil erosion and further
deforestation. Pablakhali Wildlife Sanctuary “has been converted into
almost a barren field because of massive deforestation,” Mamunul Hoque Khan
wrote.
Illegal felling of trees for timber also contributes to Pablakhali’s
deforestation, notes the Bangladesh government’s forestry master plan for
2017-2036.
“Pablakhali is experiencing frequent landslides and the siltation of
streams, particularly in the rainy season, which can be attributed to
deforestation,” Monirul H. Khan told Mongabay.
Moreover, the sanctuary is seeing loss of species like tigers, white-winged
ducks and sloth bears, Khan added, as well as declines of clouded leopards,
Asian elephants and great hornbills.