Home ›› 11 Aug 2021 ›› Nation
Sonadia Dwip, fondly called the ‘Red Crab Island’, is an island located in Cox’s Bazar’s Maheshkhali’s Kutubjom union— is planned to be developed into ‘Sonadia Ecotourism Park’, eyeing to boost tourism business in this region.
The island—comprising 4,928 hectares of land— is unique in its features with sandy beaches, mudflats, near-shore sandbars, high dunes and mangrove formations, and perfect to attract nature enthusiasts. If properly maintained, the island can be turned into a major tourist attraction and facilitate Cox’s Bazar’s tourism industry, experts say.
The government has approved a plan to establish the park sprawling on 3831.28 hectares (9467.31 acres) comprising Sonadia and other adjacent islands and the project will be implemented by the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (Beza), confirmed its Executive Chairman Sheikh Yusuf Harun.
According to their plan, initially, only 30 per cent land of the island will be used for building the infrastructure of the park without harming the verdant countryside to keep the island eco-friendly. A design of some 500 acres of land has been finalised with an Indian company, they said.
According to the Center for Environmental and Geographical Information Services (CEGIS), Beza has set aside 500 acres of land for building hotels, motels, and golf courses and 551 acres for tennis courts, marine parks, museums, marine cruises, water sports, community centres, algae, pearl farming centres and small shopping centres for the visitors. Another 30 acres of land will be used for setting up a solar power plant.
The 810 residents of the island, mostly fishermen, whose livelihood is directly linked to the marine resources in the Bay of Bengal and any adverse impact on these resources, will mean disaster for them.
They have shared their fear of eviction from their ancestral homes with this correspondent. They are also apprehensive that their natural reserve of distinctive marine species would be at risk after this massive infrastructural change on the island.
Allegations have surfaced that many residents are not being given jobs on the mainland for lack of skills, which is not true, claimed the locals.
Addressing the issues, Member of Parliament (MP) of Cox’s Bazar-2 constituency, Ashek Ullah Rafique told The Business Post: “The park will create massive job opportunities for the residents of this island. We will rehabilitate each person to a better settlement if we need to evict them for the building of the park.”
“Sonadia Ecotourism Park will be a new tourist resort like Cox’s Bazar. We have already created a master plan and completed the initial surveys. The park will attract tourists from home and abroad, adding to the country’s export earnings,” said Shaikh Yusuf Harun, executive chairman of Beza.
He also said that utmost care would be taken to minimise the environmental impact of establishing a tourism zone in this area.
However, some environmentalists are against establishing the park as they think it will hugely affect the island’s ecological balance.
Sonadia Island is home to at least 1,215 species of diverse marine species. Of them, some globally threatened species, including the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper, reside on this unique island.
The island has been declared the 20th Important Bird Area (IBA) of Bangladesh by Bird Life International. The island also supports the globally endangered Nordmann’s greenshank and other threatened birds like Great Knot, Asian dowitcher, Eurasian Curlew, and Black-tailed Godwit.
The creeks, channels, and near-shore and offshore areas of Sonadia Island support at least four species of globally threatened coastal and marine cetaceans, including Finless Porpoise Irrawaddy Dolphin, Bottlenose Dolphin and Indo-Pacific Humpback dolphin, according to an article by Zahirul Islam of Marine Life Alliance. All are listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. On this island, the threatened Olive Ridley and Green turtle also nest.
