Dhaka, Oct. 21 -- At a meeting of the standing committee on the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MEFCC), the Department of Forest informs that 287,452 acres of the country's total 4,646,700 acresof forest land are under illegal occupation. In a country where land-grabbing is rampant, encroachment of forests is hardly surprising. The good news, as the forest department claims, is that 8,791 acresof forest land could be recovered from such illegal occupation over the past five years. Does this mean that no fresh encroachment occurred during this period or was it the net gain after loss of certain portion of forest land to encroachers? Besides, 160,239 acres of the forest area has been allocated to different organisations ...