Bangladesh, Aug. 21 -- A waste facility is rising inside Bhawal National Park, one of Gazipur's protected sal forests, despite objections from forest officials and environmentalists and a High Court order to halt construction.

For years, rubbish piled up beside the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway along the edge of the forest. Gazipur City Corporation's answer was to move the waste away from the roadside by building a secondary transfer station (STS) inside the park.

But the solution has created a new environmental and legal concern: the facility is being built within the national park's boundary, in what forest officials describe as its "core zone", where waste dumps and commercial structures are prohibited.

Part of the park's boundary wall ...