Lawachara National Park

Lawachara National Park (Bengali: লাউয়াছড়া জাতীয় উদ্যান) is a national park and nature reserve in Bangladesh. It is found in Kamalganj Upazila and Moulvibazar District in the northeast part of the country. The park sits inside a big area called the West Bhanugach Reserved Forest, which covers 2,740 hectares, or 27.4 square kilometers.

The park itself covers about 1,250 hectares (12.5 square kilometers) of special types of forest. These include semi-evergreen forest and mixed deciduous forest. This beautiful area was officially made a national park by the Bangladesh government on July 7, 1996. The park was created under rules set in the Wildlife Act of 1974, helping to protect the plants and animals that live there.

Location

Lawachara National Park is found about 160 km northeast of Dhaka and 60 km from Sylhet. It is just 8 km from the town of Sreemangal Upazila.

The park has gentle, rolling hills that rise between 10 to 50 meters high. These hills are made mostly of soft sandstone from a long time ago. Small streams flow through the area, and one of them, called the Lawachara tributary, gives the park its name. The soil here is rich and brown, and some parts of the park have wet, low-lying areas that fill with water, called haors.

The weather in Lawachara is usually warm, ranging from about 27°C in February to 36°C in June. The air stays moist all year, and the park gets plenty of rain, sometimes with strong storms.

Biodiversity

Lawachara National Park is home to many different kinds of plants and animals. It has 460 species in total, including plants, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and insects.

The park's forest includes many types of trees like Quercus, Syzygium, and Tectona. Some areas have tall deciduous trees, while others have bamboo and ferns. There are also many different plant species, with fig trees and brush cherries being some of the most common. The park is an important home for the western hoolock gibbon, one of the most endangered primates, and it has one of the largest groups of these gibbons in Bangladesh. Other animals you might find there include Phayre's leaf monkey, Bengal slow loris, barking deer, wild boar, and more.

Settlements

There are about eighteen villages near Lawachara National Park. Two of these villages, Punji and Lawachara Punji, are inside the park's area. The people living there include the Khasi people, the Tripuri people, and the Monipuri people, as well as Muslim families who moved from places like Noakhali District, Comilla District, and Assam.

Villagers who are officially registered have some rights in the park. They can collect wood for fuel and building, hunt, grow betel leaf, let their animals graze, gather other things from the forest, and do a little farming on land given to them.

Chevron controversy

In 2008, the Bangladesh government allowed a company called the Chevron Corporation to do special mapping work in Lawachara National Park. This work involved using small, controlled explosions to learn more about what lies underground.

Some people worried that these explosions scared the animals in the park, causing them to leave. There were reports of damage to buildings and a small fire, which the company did not acknowledge. This mapping happened after an earlier event in 1997, when a different company’s work had damaged a nearby forest area.

Some also felt that the rules to protect wildlife were not followed properly. A group watching the environment, which included some international helpers, was funded by the same company doing the work. This made some people question if the park’s protection was being balanced with other interests.