In a bid to save our forest lands from the land grabbers, our government is going to take strict measures. As per a report published in this daily on Wednesday, a total of 2,57,158.84 acres of land of the Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) have been occupied illegally by a total of 1,60,566 people at different times.
Some notorious land grabbers have occupied these lands and are inflicting great harm to our nature by building industries, factories, resorts, residential homes and educational institutions. Now various organizations under the government are going to forge together to put a halt to these harmful acts.
If the government really means business, it will have to
skirt some dishonest maneuvers resorted by invaders
and decide procedures for taking action against invaders
irrespective of their socio political status
While launching the eviction drive, the government might confront some stern influential local people and industrialists. This is because these grabbers have fiddled with land records and come up with stay orders from courts whenever a previous eviction drive was launched. If the government really means business, it will have to skirt some dishonest maneuvers resorted by invaders and decide procedures for taking action against invaders irrespective of their socio political status.
After recovering these lands, the government should make sure that they carefully move forward with the handover process of these forest lands to any government or private organizations in the name of development activities. This is because in the name of development some private organizations or even government organizations can occupy these lands and start doing what the encroachers are doing.
If the government is really successful in their quest to free the forest lands from the encroachers, then this will not only free our forest lands but will also bring a huge boost for our climate. Encroachers often cut forest trees while occupying these lands, by recovering them the government can plant new trees, which will decrease deforestation and increase afforestation in the process.