Bangladesh’s only freshwater swamp forest Ratargul is facing mounting pressures on multiple fronts. Large tracts of its land have been encroached upon and unchecked sand extraction continues to shrink its boundaries, while heavy tourist traffic, the roar of motorboats and the indiscriminate dumping of plastic waste threaten its fragile ecosystem and remaining wildlife.

The Forest Department says legal proceedings regarding the encroachment of roughly 80 acres in the Ratargul forest beat in Sylhet are underway, adding that it has submitted its formal responses and concluded its evidence.

An investigation found that official records for the Ratargul beat, which falls under the department’s North Sylhet Range-2, put its total area at 3,325.61 acres. A field survey, however, indicates that only 819.61 acres remain under the department’s direct control, meaning roughly three-quarters of the forest has been encroached upon or lost over the years.

Residents accuse influential circles of exploiting ambiguities in boundary demarcations to expand farmland, establish settlements and construct illegal fish enclosures in and around the forest.

As buffer zones are taken over and the surrounding area continues to shrink, the forest’s natural environment is suffering severe degradation.

Further compounding the threat to Ratargul is unregulated sand extraction from the Chengher Khal and the Gowain River. Sand-extraction “syndicates” use dredgers to extract sand freely at night around Jalurmukh and Majherghat, causing the riverbed and banks to separate.

Md Sha Alam Islam, an officer with the Sylhet Forest Department’s Surrey range, acknowledged the issue.

“It’s not that sand thieves haven’t tried, but we have conducted operations quickly and thwarted them,” he said. “In one operation we seized a large bulkhead. In the forest court’s judgment the accused were sentenced to six months and the bulkhead was confiscated in favour of the state. Another bulkhead was seized and, after a case was filed at the police station, handed over to police as evidence. These strict measures have completely stopped attempts to extract sand.”

Local resident Ariful Islam said sand-extraction syndicates were causing the swamp forest’s native hijal and koroch trees to vanish into the river, roots and all.

“The relentless erosion is shrinking the forest’s core area and putting farmland and homesteads in several villages including neighbouring Chalitabari and Majherghat, at risk of submergence,” he said.

Saikat Talukder, a student at Sylhet MC College who recently visited Ratargul, said: “In the past we could find the peaceful calm of silent nature here. But now amid the noise of tourists in the forest, birds are no longer seen as they were. The murky water and the absence of wildlife are noticeable.”

Shuaibul Islam is an organiser with the environmental group Bhumi Shontan Bangladesh. He told Bonik Barta: “Unless the encroached land is recovered immediately, plastic use is banned and specific rules are made for tourist entry, Ratargul cannot be saved. The Ratargul of four or five years ago no longer exists.”

Forest Department official Shah Alam Islam maintained that the administration was taking a firm stance on protecting the forest as a whole.

“Special patrol teams are deployed even at night to protect the forest’s biodiversity, and fish hunting in the forest has been completely stopped as a result,” he said.

On land encroachment, the range officer said the special biodiversity conservation area covering about 550 acres had no encroachment. “It remains fully under the department’s control and protection. But the encroachment of roughly 80 acres in the Ratargul beat remains the subject of an ongoing court case.”