UNB, Bagerhat :
Although international donor agencies are
concerned about the Sundarbans, the government is still reluctant about protecting the mangrove forest and it is indeed taking steps to destroy it, said a BNP probe body here on Monday. “Even though the donor agencies are deeply worried about the Sundarbans and showed their interest to protect it, our government is indifferent in this regard. Instead, it’s taking steps one after another to destroy the forest,” said BNP probe body chief Major (retd) Hafizuddin Ahmed.
He was talking to reporters after the probe panel formed by BNP visited the Sundarbans, including the spot where an oil tanker crashed in the Shela River in Mongla, spilling out oil over vast areas of the Sundarbans.
Mentioning that ‘OT Southern Star-7’ was actually a sand-carrying vessel, Hafizuddin, also BNP vice-chairman, said, “It’s surprising that dangerous fuel was being carried by such a vessel.” He also said had the government any interest about the Sundarbans, such incident would not have occurred.
The BNP leader said the government has manifested its irresponsibility by taking the decision to set up a coal-fired power plant at Rampal near the Sundarbans only to ‘appease’ India.
Six members of the seven-strong probe panel visited different areas
of the Sundarbans, including the accident spot, along the Shela River
by a launch.
They also entered deep into the forest to see for themselves the impacts of the oil spill.
The committee chief talked to the journalists in Kheyaghat area after the visit.
Hafizuddin said they went through some 30-kilometre area and talked to local people when they informed the BNP team that the oil spill had badly affected the biodiversity and aquatic life of the Sundarbans.
Many wild animals have also died, he quoted the locals as saying, adding that fishermen were passing their days half-fed as fishes vanished from the river.
Many locals have developed skin diseases while removing floated oil slick from the river, the BNP leader said.
He also urged the government to immediately take steps to protect the Sundarbans, its environment, biodiversity as well as lives of locals. Meanwhile, an expert team of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reached Mongla Port here on Monday afternoon to assess the extent of adverse impacts caused to the Sundarbans by the oil spill following an oil tanker crash.
The team, ‘Joint UN Sundarbans Oil Spill Response Mission’, reached Mongla Port around 4pm, Divisional Forest Officer Amir Hossain Chowdhury of the Sundarbans East Zone (Bagerhat) told UNB over phone They will stay overnight at a lunch in the Pashur River and visit the Sundarbans on Tuesday, said forest official Zahidul Kabir. The team left Dhaka around 7 am with 20 experts and five other officials, according to a UNDP official accompanying the team. In response to a government request, the UN system in Bangladesh mobilised the international team of experts to support the government’ drive to clean up the oil spill in the Sundarbans.
