Save St Martin`s from human savage

THE biodiversity of the country’s only offshore coral Island of St Martin’s away from Cox’s Bazar coastline is under threat as the tourists are routinely ignoring the Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) law, as per a news report published on Thursday. There is no awareness program to make the tourists conscious about the ECA law. There is no government action plan to strengthen the island’s protection and preservation of its rare species. In fact there is none to tell about the ecological sensitivities and the risk that its species is open to suffer as several thousand tourists are crowding the place daily and celebrating their presence.

What is most striking is that even the Department of Environment (DoE) is not having a guard to protect its building in the island, least to talk about other protection. It just shows scale of neglect to highlighting a highly unusual situation. At least seven ships carry over 5000 tourists daily there. Many are regularly disturbing turtle’s habitat in bushes; they buy coral and throw non-biodegradable trash and debris in the sea.

As per the report the government had implemented a five-year project named “Biodiversity Protection and Eco-Tourism” in the island that ended in 2001. There is no such work in the island for long since then. The Ministry declared St. Martin’s island as ecologically critical area and tourist sensitive zone in 1999, but yet to give any guideline for tourists and the inhabitants there.The government even did not take any major initiative to make the declaration effective and what is surprising is that the Environment Ministry official blamed lack of manpower to give protection to the island from destruction in the hands of human beings.

Meanwhile indiscriminate anchoring of tourist boats and fishing vessels is largely blamed for damaging the coral reefs and changing the environmental dynamics threatening the safety of the island. Garbage thrown on shore or dumped into the sea by hotels and tourists are also polluting the seabed.

We must say that the government must pay heed to the concerns voiced by scientists as the island has been left without effective protection. It is important that attention must be given immediately to the development of the island as 25 percent of all marine lives depend on corals. Without coral reefs, fishes would have no shelter to live and to lay their eggs, but most of the corals have been destroyed for excessive anchoring of tourist boats on the shore. We support the experts view that the government should declare the Island as Marine Protected Area (MPA) immediately and the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Ministry of Fisheries, should act quickly about it. We must say unplanned tourism and pollution should be regulated to stop further damage to the island.