Felling of 36 Big Trees
Foresters say dead, villagers doubt
Workers chop wood from felled teak trees on the premises of Pabna forest office on Wednesday as the local forest department recently sold out 36 trees as 'dead'. Locals, however, claim several of the trees were green.Photo: STAR
Thirty-six large trees including teak, epil-epil, eucalyptus, akashmoni, minjiri and koroi under Pabna Forest Range are being felled as forest department has sold them out as dead trees. Several locals, however, said quite a few of the trees are not old enough to be considered 'dead'. Following a tender process that was completed on March 28 this year, a bidder bought the 36 trees for Tk 1.91 lakh, forest department sources said. Workers engaged by the contractors started felling the trees two weeks ago, locals said. “The 36 trees have been sold through a tender as all of them are dead. There is not a single living tree in the list. We completed the tender process following all the government rules,” Ajit Kumar Rudra, divisional forest officer (DFO) in Pabna, told this correspondent yesterday. Locals, however, said a few teak trees, which are 50 to 60 years old, could survive longer. “Once there were a few hundred teak trees in Pabna forest but they are decreasing day by day. Old and large teak trees are not often seen now,” said a 60-year-old villager in Shalgaria forest area. DFO Ajit Kumar Rudra, on the other hand, said, "Earlier the tops of the teak trees had broken in natural disaster. The dead trees, which are getting damaged, have been sold for maximum price through tender."
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