Rights Corner
Preservation of forest and environmental rights
Oli Md. Abdullah Chowdhury
Despite all the efforts made by environmentalists, forests are continued to be under threat. Though laws have been enacted and there are some improvements in implementations, some degraders have adopted new techniques. Many of the readers might come across the news published in The Daily Star on plundering of the mangrove forest. It revealed how a group of people backed by a local NGO had been able to cut huge number of trees in the mangrove forest. Environment is not only degraded through cutting trees, but massive urbanisation is also contributing in various forms of pollution in the environment.
Bangladesh is one the most vulnerable countries in the world suffering from the impacts of climate change. On the other hand, Bangladesh lags behind the minimum required forest coverage despite forestation and tree plantation drives every year. There are also scopes created for Bangladesh to trade carbon under Kyoto Protocol through forestation. However, environmentalists always argue for preserving natural forest as the existence of natural forest is crucial for maintaining bio-diversity.
Environment Conservation Act was promulgated in 1995 even before the effect of climate change is widely known. One of the salient feature of this Act is the government could declare Environmentally Critical Area depending on the status of degradation occurred in a particular area. It has been stated in Article 5(1) of the Act, “If the Government is satisfied that an area is in an environmentally critical situation or is threatened to be in such situation, the Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, declare such area as an ecologically critical area”. Although the Ministry of Environment and Forests has already declared seven areas including Sundarbans as critical areas, reports of activities hazardous to environment in those areas still appears in the newspapers.
Awareness rising at the grassroots is very important to protect the environmental diversity. Mass education on environmental issues would help prevent degradation of environment. If local communities take an active interest in maintaining environment around them, it would make the job of other stakeholders including Department of Environment (DoE) easier. DoE is yet to establish offices in all districts and it is not possible for the department alone to address all the issues related to environment without an active participation of local communities.
Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) first initiated Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on environmental issues and has been successful in bringing some positive changes. Influential quarters have been made to comply with environmental regulations upon having directions from the court. A few other organisations and civil society bodies like Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) have now come forward to advocate on environmental issues. However, sustaining positive changes is still a challenge and involvement of local communities is fundamental to sustain changes brought through legal activism.
Trees and forests help alleviate changes in climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it during photosynthesis to carbon. Forest stores those carbons in the form of wood and vegetation. Preserving forest is, therefore, of paramount important and measures must be taken before it is too late.
The writer is a human rights worker.
