Bagerhat: Local saboteurs are reportedly setting fire to the Sunbarban, the lone natural habitat to Bengal tigers, in a planned way to destroy the forest for their personal gains, according to forest officials.

‘Saboteurs are setting fire to the Sundarbans one after another.  Today’s (April 18) fire that originated at Abdullah Shila adjacent to Nangli camp is the part of their continuous acts of sabotage,’ divisional forest officer (Sundarbans East Zone) M Saidul Islam told UNB.

Four days after a fire had originated in the forest, another broke out at Abdullah Shila in Chandpai range of the Sundarbans in Sharankhola upazila on Monday morning, endangering its unique ecosystem. This is the third incident of forest fire in Chandpai range over the last three weeks.

Md Sultan Mahmud, officer of Dhansagor Station of the Sundarbans, said a team of Forest Department officials, led by him, was patrolling the forest on Monday morning and they saw smoke billowing when they reached Nangli camp.

‘And when the team got close to the fire to put it out, several people who were behind it fled into the deep forest,’ he said.

Mahmud said those who fled the scene actually set the fire to the forest in a planned way to cause damage to it.

According to locals, villagers living nearby the Sundarbans often enter the forest and set fire to it to collect firewood and when the burnt area of the Sundarbans goes under water during monsoon they use it to catch fish. They also use the fire-damaged area as cattle grazing ground during the dry season.

Forest officials say about 20 fire incidents took place in Sharankhula and Chandpai Ranges of the Sundarbans East Zone in last 14 years (2002-April 18, 2016) burning down 70 acres of forest and causing damage to the unique ecosystem of the world heritage site.

On April 15 last, the Forest Department filed a case against six fishermen in connection with the fire originated on April 13 last in Chandpai range of the Sundarbans that burnt around 8.5 acres of forest. Another fire broke out in the Dhanshagor station’s Nangli forest camp area of the Sundarbans’ Chadpai Range on March 27, 2016.

Meanwhile, a Bagerhat court on Sunday issued separate warrants for the arrest of six accused in a case filed over the forest fire at Nangli camp on April 13 last.

Saidul Islam said some villagers turned angry following the filing of the case by the Forest Department and set fire to the Sundarbans again on Monday in their evil effort to put the forest officials in trouble.

About the consequence of the fire incidents, Mahmud Hossain, a professor of forestry at Khulna University, said if a fire incident takes place in the Sundarbans, it spreads into ground generally and the recurrence of fire incidents poses a serious threat to the biodiversity of the forest.

Soil fertility is declining in the Sundarbans due to repeated forest fires, he said, adding that mangrove plants require a huge time to grow up there as a tide cannot inundate the burnt areas.

The world largest mangrove forest suffered recurrent manmade disasters in recent years. A tanker carrying about 350,000 litres of furnace oil crashed in its Shela River on December 9, 2014 while a cargo sank on March 19, 2016.

The Sundarbans is a Unesco world heritage site located in three coastal districts — Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira - covering a range of 6,017 square kilometers.