The southeastern coastlines came under a spectacular green belt cover with regeneration of nearly extinct mangrove vegetation in the region under a participatory campaign to develop the green patch stretching along the entire shorelines of the Bay of Bengal.
“They call it (mangrove forest) ‘paraban’ in the southeastern region . . . we achieved the success after carrying out the campaign over the past half a decade to regenerate the paraban here,” forest department’s Coastal Forest Zone chief in Chittagong RSM Monirul Islam told BSS.
He said, the green belt was developed in 60,000 acres of land stretching along the coastlines in Chittagong district while for the Cox’s Bazar district the figure was 24,000 acres, where the special types of vegetation require certain topographic condition like saline waters and soil condition.
Forest officials said, the coastlines require the green belt for protection from cyclones or tidal surges but the mangrove was crucial particularly for conservation of critical ecosystem, also to prevent the climate change phenomenon, in regions where the sea touches the mainland.
The non-mangrove Jhawban previously featured the scenic Cox’s Bazar but the forest department plantation campaign re-yielded the nearly lost paraban species like bayan, kewra, and hargoja and golpata, which were mainly seen alone in world’s largest mangrove forest of Sundarbans in the southwestern coastlines.
Experts said, the submerged mangrove forests, which grow in confluences of river and sea, create breeding grounds for various types of fishes and wildlife as well as microorganisms, crucial for biodiversity.
Parts of the campaign were carried out with the active participation of the people in the neighbourhood which also facilitated their livelihood and officials said, in cases, these people in grassroots developed resistance against influential ones with vested interests who tended to grab the forests to develop commercial projects.
“We developed the paraban supporting the government initiative as it increases the yields of fishes of various types . . . unless we protect it, our livelihood will be affected,” said Mokhtar Ahmed, a resident of Nuniar Chhara village in Cox’s Bazar sadar upazila.
Fellow villagers said they also needed the forest to get rid of the initial thrust of cyclones as the plants stood as barriers against such storms.
