Our forests
Photo: STAR
Thanks a lot for the DS and Inam Ahmed for bringing the issue before the public. This story reveals that our forestry sector is in great disarray. Simply because we do not know what the bottom tier is doing or are they intentionally ignorant of the happenings inside all the forests in the country. However, the irony of our fate is that all forest officials are likely to deny that something happened within their jurisdictions irrespective of their positions, from FG to CCF because all levels are said to be involved in forestry malpractice. I hope the nation has not forgotten the issue of sack full of money recovered from some forest officials by the past caretaker government. Those forest officials did not sit in the forest but led the FD from its Dhaka headquarters. So, money comes from the illegal logging and possibly some other sources that law enforcing authorities should trace. The govt must overhaul the entire forest department by breaking it into 3 separate institutions - commercial forestry, conservation forestry and wildlife preservation departments where each will have its own chunk of forest specifically reserved for their own activities.
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