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| Cry
of the Forest |
Cry of the Forest
The forest and her children
—
images of pain
The story of Natural heritage, the forest of Bangladesh,
is a pain-filled one. The forest cover has exhausted
from 18% in the first half of the twentieth century
to about 6%. Bangladesh still has significant
mangrove forests but in other forestland only
tiny patches of the natural forests are left today.
There are many factors for the depletion of forests.
Foremost among these are colonial trends of extraction,
and commercial and industrial plantations. In
Bangladesh, plantation of exotic or invasive species
dates back to 1873, but these have rapidly expanded
in recent times.
While tree plantation in rural Bangladesh has
yielded much of the desired results, plantations,
especially with invasive or exotic species, on
public forest land have caused environmental disasters
and human misery. Plantations of teak, rubber,
eucalyptus, acacia, pine and other exotics that
we see on public forest land in Bangladesh are
"simple plantation forestry". Native
forests have been cleared for plantations.
Governments, companies, pulp/paper industries,
international financial institutions, etc. strongly
support and finance these plantations.
There is a government objective "To re-place
the existing irregular, depleted and less productive
forests by a man-made plantation forest with more
valuable and productive species suited to the
soil and country's requirements". This objective
has had devastating effects for Bangladesh.
The images in the exhibition, "Cry of the
Forest" by Philip Gain tell the story of
drastic depletion of our forest traditions.
One particular focus of the exhibition is the
forest people, especially the indigenous communities,
who have traditionally sourced the forest for
their livelihood and have lived in harmony with
Nature. But plantations and legal reforms have
rendered the children of the forest illegal residents
on their traditional homeland as well.
The Society for Environment and Human Development
(SEHD), out of concern for the current state of
environment, has given Philip Gain an outstanding
opportunity to study the fate of our forests.
His journey through the Natural heritage for more
than a decade has made this exhibition possible.
The Photography Exhibition by Philip Gain was
first organized at Drik Gallery from 11 to 17
June 2003.
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