Poor Progress in Wildlife Conservation Project
WB may divert fund
The World Bank (WB) may divert fund for a forest department project on wildlife conservation as about 90 percent of the $36 million loan remains idle even though half the four-year project period has elapsed.
Officials concerned said lack of a permanent director and conservation ideas was the reason behind the poor progress of the project styled "Strengthening regional cooperation for wildlife protection".
Upon reviewing the project, the WB has recently given the forest department six months to come up with proposals on conservation related pilot schemes.
"We have agreed to the six-month period to see some real progress. Otherwise, we will have to revise the programme," said Sumith Pilapitiya, a member of the WB review committee.
The government signed the $36 million (Tk 236 crore) loan agreement in June 2011 under a WB regional cooperation programme where Nepal and Bhutan are already a party and India is likely to join.
The purpose of the project is to increase regional cooperation in wildlife conservation and to control cross-border illegal wildlife trade.
Using the fund, Bangladesh was supposed to update its present status of wildlife, curb illegal wildlife trading, reduce human-animal conflicts, control habitat destruction, build capacity of wildlife officials and support livelihood of the local people.
Implementation of some pilot projects for 34 protected forest areas was also one of the major components of the project.
“The programme was designed expecting field officers would propose methods of conservation. But we did not get many such proposals. The field officials mostly approached with different infrastructure construction ideas which we had to send back," said a project official.
The official said at the present rate of progress, the department would hardly be able to utilise half the fund by the time the project duration expired.
The project got stalled early last year after the replacement of its first director Tapan Kumar Dey, conservator of forest (wildlife), on the allegation of fund misappropriation. After that Aparup Chowdhury, a joint secretary of the environment ministry, was given the responsibility as his extra duty.
But the WB believes a full-time director should be in place to give the project life.
Meanwhile, an India-Bangladesh joint tiger survey using camera trapping method is in progress in the Sundarbans.
A wildlife crime control unit has also been set up at the forest department involving dedicated officials of five government agencies --wildlife circle, police, customs, border guards and Rapid Action Battalion.
Besides, some small projects like identifying elephant corridors in Chittagong Hill Tracts by IUCN, conservation of langur in Keshabpur, Jessore, developing national biodiversity action plan, introducing patrolling in the Sundarbans and encouraging eco-tourism have been okayed.
Some fund will also be used in updating the red data book of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
As per the last updated data of IUCN, until 2006, a total of 558 out of 1,597 resident wildlife species of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are either on the brink of extinction, or endangered or vulnerable.
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