সাইদুর রহমান চৌধুরী

It is going to be a humongous project, taking decades to reach its final phase; nevertheless the cabinet has in principle given green signal for going ahead with the proposed Sonadia Island Deep Sea Port recently. I never had a question in mind whether we need a facility like this; however, I wonder if the cabinet can give a ‘go ahead’ without repealing the Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) declaration first. Sonadia Island has been declared by the Director General of the Department of Environment as an ECA in 1999 along with six other sites under the provisions of the Bangladesh Environmental Conservation Act, 1995 (BECA, 95). The declaration as an ECA was understandably justifiable considering...