In a decision that could potentially directly impact people’s livelihoods on St Martin’s Island, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change today took an initiative to raze “unauthorised” business establishments on the beach.
Additionally, previously illegally granted licences to these business establishments would be cancelled in the event of their failure to comply with the government’s move, a press statement issued by the ministry said.
The Ministry of Land has been apprised of this decision.
The ministry, which imposed a ten-month ban – put in place since January 2025 – on the travel of tourists to St Martin’s Island, claimed that “licences for shops were granted in violation of rules, causing severe damage to the biodiversity and natural environment of the beach”.
Invoking the Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act, 1995, and the Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) Management Rules, 2016, the government said it was “strictly forbidden to construct any environmentally harmful structure, whether permanent or temporary, within an ECA”.
The ministry cautioned that “the relevant authorities have also been warned against undertaking any such activities in the future without the approval of the Department of Environment”.
Pointing out that the government had “declared the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf sea beach as an Ecologically Critical Area on April 19, 1999”, the ministry sought to drive home its threat to demolish business establishments by pointing out that the Bangladesh High Court and the Supreme Court had previously “injunctions against the construction of structures on the beach at various times”.
Meanwhile, tour operators in Cox’s Bazar apprehend that the government may extend the ban on tourist travel to St Martin’s Island by another two months.
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“In the event the government extends the ban on tourists’ travel, we would be left with only two months, January and February. Consequently, this would adversely affect business and hit livelihoods of thousands of people,” an office bearer of the Cox’s Bazar Tour Operators’ Association said.
The government’s threat to crackdown on “illegal” business establishments comes at a time when it has already promised to conduct elections in February 2026.
What is even more puzzling about the government’s decision is that it will go into effect in the backdrop of increased presence of US soldiers in Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar in the name of military exercises.
