Morning Sun Online //

Adviser to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Syeda Rizwana Hasan said that various restrictions related to travel to St. Martin Island will be implemented before the start of the next tourist season i.e. before November.

The adviser said this at a press conference on Monday (Oct 7) on freeing up single-use plastics on St. Martin Island and managing eco-friendly tourism and biodiversity conservation on St. Martin Island.

Stating that the decisions taken during the previous government were not implemented, the adviser said, we will start the work of freeing the use of single-use plastic (one-time use) in three tourist spots of the country – Saint Martin, Cox’s Bazar and Kuakata. It won’t happen overnight. But we will start the work.

He said, the ministry is quite prepared for Saint Martin. Various decisions have been made about St. Martin in the past. This coral island is nowhere in Bangladesh. There are several endangered wildlife, birds, turtles and mammals. This island is very small. The government has already done some work on how we can protect it.

Environmentally critical areas have been declared in 1999 in the Environment Act. Again, it has been declared as Marine Protected Area under the Wildlife Conservation and Safety Act. The island is becoming more fragile day by day.