Blazing flames raced through a coastal forest in southern Bangladesh leaving thousands of smouldering trees and threatening wildlife in the world’s biggest mangrove vegetation, forest officials said on Monday.
The lush tree cover of a four square kilometre area has been reduced to ashes as the early summer breeze fanned the fire in at least 50 places in the Sunderbans, said a local forest official, Mohammad Idrees, who first sighted the black smoke four days ago.
Idrees claimed the fire was put out by late Sunday, but local fishermen living in coastal hamlets said they had spotted Sundri trees still burning in the dry weather marked by soaring heat.
The central forest department in the capital, Dhaka, said the aftermath of the forest fire could exact a heavy toll on the tiger population. The big cats are on the international list of endangered animals.
”The leaping flames have also seriously damaged the natural sanctuary of birds and deers,” said a government forest officer.
About 5 000 trees were burnt to the ground, according to an official estimate. Unofficial figures show the devastation to be on a much wider scale.
Firefighters, mainly volunteers from coastal settlements, suspect that the fire was accidentally ignited by illegal wild honey collectors who prowl into the wilderness at night with open flaming torches.
”The fire could also be set off by a cooking stove of forest workers who camp out in the forest for extracting firewood,” said forest ranger Mostafa Gazi.
The 10 000 square kilometres of tropical jungle is the biggest mangrove forest in the world and is shared by neighbours India (40%) and Bangladesh (60%).
The two countries have jointly undertaken a cross-border tiger count from January for the first time since the United Nations’s scientific, educational and cultural agency, Unesco, declared the Sunderbans a world heritage site.
The results of the tiger census will not be available before July. Wildlife experts fear that the number of the Bengal tigers roaming in the forest may decline to less than 400 due to increasing human encroachments on their habitat and weak enforcement of existing wildlife protection regulations on both sides of the border. — Sapa-DPA