We know that despite the government ban, illegal hill cutting and destruction of forest are continuing unabated in the hilly areas, and ironically, the government agencies are in the forefront of cutting hills for constructing roads, setting up public offices and other paradoxical development, in addition to private destruction of hills by private individuals for real estate business. Even, Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) partially razed two hills in the city for housing projects. These activities are going by ignoring existing laws to protect environment and save hills and forests.
We must say the government should stop such destruction of hills and become vigilant to prevent this suicidal step. It should chalk out extended plan to protect hills while pushing activities to promote sustainable development in the area. It is open secret that hill cutting is posing serious threat to the nature and the biodiversity of the area. Human activities have made hills death trap to people as landslide is occurring very often resulting from erosion of soil and its natural compact when torrential rain hits the hills. Surprisingly, the CCC in June flattened 11,232 square feet of a hill within Chittagong city for constructing a road to make access to a new housing project.
The soil structure of entire hilly area of Chittagong and Sylhet is poorly compacted and prone to landslide from the point of geological time-scale. The hills are consolidated by shale, siltstones and sandstones underlie them and all the mountain ranges of the hill tracts are almost hogback ridges, meaning rise steeply, and extended in long narrow ridges. For these reason incessant rainfall and cutting hill made the hillocks imbalanced to collapse.
We wonder why the government has left the hills unprotected to destruction when more and more catastrophes are hitting the local people, killing them and degrading the environment. The fact is that powerful people are using the hills for their benefits and the government is playing the role of silent witness instead of enforcing the law. We must say it must stop to save the nature and life of people living in the bottom of the hills and around it.
