When Forest Dept turns natural forest into commercial woodlot | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Thursday
July 03, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
THURSDAY, JULY 03, 2025
When Forest Dept turns natural forest into commercial woodlot

Bangladesh

Sadiqur Rahman
06 August, 2022, 10:30 am
Last modified: 06 August, 2022, 04:28 pm

Related News

  • Dhaka South, Forest Department sign MoU for urban afforestation, greening initiative
  • 600 deer traps, 16 illegal crab-catching tools seized in Sundarbans
  • 17, including Forest Department workers, abducted from Teknaf hill
  • Milestone rewilding brings 2 critically endangered tortoise species back to Bangladesh
  • What fuels our appetite for turning wild forests into parks?

When Forest Dept turns natural forest into commercial woodlot

Sadiqur Rahman
06 August, 2022, 10:30 am
Last modified: 06 August, 2022, 04:28 pm
The rich natural habitat of Rajkandi reserve forest in Moulvibazar is under threat as the forest department has started turning the natural forest into a “woodlot” by planting fast-growing timber species, including exotic trees like acacia. Photo: TBS
The rich natural habitat of Rajkandi reserve forest in Moulvibazar is under threat as the forest department has started turning the natural forest into a “woodlot” by planting fast-growing timber species, including exotic trees like acacia. Photo: TBS

In the deep sylvan shadows of Rajkandi forest, there still roam globally endangered species like serows (Bon chhagol) and Asiatic black bear as recent camera trapping has unearthed.

But that rich natural habitat is now under threat thanks to the forest department, which in its strange logic has started turning the natural forest into a "woodlot" by planting fast-growing timber species, including exotic trees like acacia.

Stranger is the fact that the destruction of the natural forest is being carried out with climate funds aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of climate change.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

When the trees mature right in the belly of the forest in Adampur, they will be chopped down wholesale and sold for commercial purposes. One can imagine the impact of such destructive "social forestry" projects on wildlife in a natural forest that Bangladesh lacks so much. Rajkandi is one of a handful of such natural forests.

In this way a natural forest is being turned into a commercial woodlot, and this is also the way in which most natural forests in Bangladesh have basically vanished.

Photo: TBS
Photo: TBS

Moulvibazar district forest officials call it a "reforestation" project that will create woodlots on some 75 hectares of forestland. They claim this will be done on patches where the density of trees is thin and covered only by bushes.

At least 1 lakh saplings of different species, including acacia, chikrashi, gamar, jarul, arjun, karoi, bahera and amloki, will be planted in the forest. After 10 years, the trees will be chopped down and around 180 project beneficiaries, who are among the forest-dependents, will get the lion's share of the timber price.

However, there is no explanation as to why a natural forest has to be turned into a social forestry project with mostly exotic trees. A visit to the area shows it is covered primarily with acacia.

This is the prime reason some wildlife experts and nature conservationists oppose commercial-based tree plantation in natural forests like Rajkandi.

Jahangirnagar University's zoology teacher Professor Monirul H Khan said the best sustainable way to restore degraded parts of a natural forest is either allowing regeneration or plantation of native species there.

"Native wildlife can thrive in an abundance of native plant species. A natural forest, if it is vastly degraded, should not be used in tree plantations to supply timber and fuel wood," Monirul Khan said.       

Acacia saplings have been planted in rows inside the Rajkandi reserve forest in Moulvibazar. Photo: TBS
Acacia saplings have been planted in rows inside the Rajkandi reserve forest in Moulvibazar. Photo: TBS

Launched in 2019, the 5-year reforestation and infrastructural development project worth Tk700.41 million has been implemented to combat the negative impacts of climate change across Sylhet division. Under the project, woodlot development by co-managed social forestry started in the Rajkandi forest in February 2021, forest officials said.

The Protected Forest Management Rules 2017 allows fast-growing tree plantation under social and co-managed forestry in the buffer zone of a reserve forest but only on selection of the 'local species'. Then why such non-native species as acacia?

Sylhet Divisional Forest Officer Towfiqul Islam explained, "Local people prefer acacia because they can harvest timber from it fast. Since the department lacks enough manpower, we need the cooperation of locals in limiting forest degradation."

Photo: TBS
Photo: TBS

Towfiqul Islam said the woodlots are being developed only in the buffer zone.

Between March and July this year, Muntasir Akash, faculty member of Dhaka University's department of zoology, surveyed the mammals inhabiting Rajkandi Forest.

"Due to unabated encroachment, you cannot differentiate between the buffer zone and core zone in Rajkandi," Akash said. 

Akash was overwhelmed at spotting Asiatic black bear and serows among other animals in camera trapping. At the same time, he was worried about the wildlife as he also spotted game hunting and forest encroachment by ethnic minority communities in the name of betel leaf plantation.

Amid these evident threats, the young zoologist questioned the logic of reforestation with fast-growing and non-native species like acacia.

Renowned Bangladeshi zoologist Dr Reza Khan, Principal Wildlife Specialist at the Dubai Safari Parks, Public Parks and Recreational Department, Dubai Municipality, terms tree plantation for periodical green coverage 'very dangerous' to a natural forest.

"You have developed a woodlot as well as an ecosystem for numerous frugivorous [fruit eater] animals, birds and pollinators [fed on nectar] like flower flies. One day you cut the trees for timber. Eventually, you destroy the entire ecosystem," Reza said.

He requested the Forest Department to bring more khas lands under timber-oriented tree plantation.

A signboard of the forest department that says the woodlot forestation project is being carried out to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. Photo: TBS
A signboard of the forest department that says the woodlot forestation project is being carried out to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. Photo: TBS

Citing a High Court judgement on 28 August 2019 on the protection of the Sal Forest from non-native and commercial tree plantation, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers' Association Chief Executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan said the court observed that the plantation of non-native and commercial species like acacia and gamar did not result in a reforestation of forests but instead caused a fast disappearance of native wildlife.

"The existing laws only recognise the rights of forest-dependent people on the resources until their activities do not harm the forest ecosystem. So, planting acacia is not acceptable in the reserve forest," Rizwana Hasan said.

Rajkandi Reserve Forest, comprising three beats: Adampur, Kurma and Kamarchara, is located in Kamalganj of Moulvibazar district. It was declared as a protected area in 1915 by the government of British India.

Photo: TBS
Photo: TBS

This tropical semi-evergreen forest area comprises 2,450 hectares of land that fall within the Indo-Burma hot-spot of biodiversity.

A collaborative study by the botany department of Jahangirnagar University and National Herbarium of Bangladesh was done following the taxonomic surveys from 2010 to 2017. The survey found at least 549 angiosperms (plants that produce flowers and bear their seeds in fruits) species in Rajkandi. The abundance of the angiosperm species was 15.20% of the total 3,611 reported in Bangladesh.

According to the study – An Annotated Checklist of the Angiospermic Flora of Rajkandi Reserve Forest of Moulvibazar, Bangladesh – Rajkandi forest houses 25 angiosperm species considered threatened in the Red Data Book of Vascular Plants of Bangladesh.

Plant taxonomist and conservationist Dr AKM Kamrul Haque, associated with the study, opined that Rajkandi Forest is a highly valuable natural resource for Bangladesh.

"For reforestation, animal supporting plants, including jaam, haritaki, bohera, jongli mango and other native species, instead of acacia, should be given priority. There is no use of acacia for the wildlife of Rajkandi," Kamrul Haque asserted.

Top News

Rajkandi forest / Forest Department / Bangladesh Forest Department / Forest Department (FD) / Woodlot

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Infograph: TBS
    What it will take to merge crisis-hit Islamic banks
  • Govt to pay 3-year high ACU bill of $2b next week
    Govt to pay 3-year high ACU bill of $2b next week
  • A file photo of the NBR Bhaban in Agargaon, Dhaka
    NBR officers gripped by fear as govt gets tough  

MOST VIEWED

  • Govt lowers interest rates on savings instruments
    Govt lowers interest rates on savings instruments
  • File photo of Bangladesh Public Service Commission logo. Photo: Collected
    Repeat recommendations in 44th BCS spark vacancy fears
  • File photo of Chattogram Port/TBS
    Ctg port handles record 32.96 lakh containers in FY25, revenue hits Tk75,432 crore
  • Chief adviser’s Special Envoy for International Affairs and Adviser Lutfey Siddiqi
    Fake documents submission behind visa complications for Bangladeshis: Lutfey Siddiqi
  • Zakir Hossain. Photo: Collected
    Ctg customs commissioner suspended for joining NBR officials' 'complete shutdown'
  • Controversial taxman Matiur’s rulings cost govt Tk1000cr in lost revenue
    Controversial taxman Matiur’s rulings cost govt Tk1000cr in lost revenue

Related News

  • Dhaka South, Forest Department sign MoU for urban afforestation, greening initiative
  • 600 deer traps, 16 illegal crab-catching tools seized in Sundarbans
  • 17, including Forest Department workers, abducted from Teknaf hill
  • Milestone rewilding brings 2 critically endangered tortoise species back to Bangladesh
  • What fuels our appetite for turning wild forests into parks?

Features

Illustration: TBS

The buildup to July Uprising: From a simple anti-quota movement to a wildfire against autocracy

9h | Panorama
Illustration: TBS

Ulan Daspara: Remnants of a fishing village in Dhaka

2d | Panorama
Photo: Collected

Innovative storage accessories you’ll love

3d | Brands
Two competitors in this segment — one a flashy newcomer, the other a hybrid veteran — are going head-to-head: the GAC GS3 Emzoom and the Toyota CH-R. PHOTOS: Nafirul Haq (GAC Emzoom) and Akif Hamid (Toyota CH-R)

GAC Emzoom vs Toyota CH-R: The battle of tech vs trust

3d | Wheels

More Videos from TBS

Will Syria normalise relations with Israel?

Will Syria normalise relations with Israel?

8h | Others
Multinational companies' participation in the Israeli massacre in Gaza

Multinational companies' participation in the Israeli massacre in Gaza

9h | Others
July fighter Fahim doesn't want to be a burden.

July fighter Fahim doesn't want to be a burden.

9h | TBS Stories
The government has reduced the profit on savings certificates; what is its impact on the common man?

The government has reduced the profit on savings certificates; what is its impact on the common man?

10h | Podcast
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net