Almost 200 illegal buildings have been built on Saint Martin’s Island. Bringing construction materials from Teknaf to St Martin’s Island is illegal and the permission of the upazila administration is even needed for government construction projects. Faizul Kabir, an inspector of the Department of Environment in St Martin’s Island, said: “Until last year, the number of illegally constructed buildings was 192. The St Martin’s coral island stretches 8.3 square kilometres in the Bay of Bengal near the southeastern border with Myanmar. In 1999, the government declared 590 hectares of land on St Martin’s Island as environmentally critical areas in an effort to preserve the biodiversity there.

Source: bd News24 October 19, 2023 08:02 UTC