"Andrea Dekrout is Senior Environmental Coordinator for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Based in Geneva, Dekrout is responsible for ensuring sustainable environmental management in UNHCR operations and refugee camps. In her work, she helps refugees and their host communities maintain a clean and healthy environment. We sat down with her to discuss the situation in Cox’s Bazar, a coastal city that has recently seen an enormous influx of refugees. The refugee settlements on southern Bangladesh’s Teknaf Peninsula have existed for a number of years. Before August 2017 they hosted about 200,000 refugees, mainly Rohingyas from Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Since then almost 700,000 more have arrived, after making a perilous journey via land, river or sea. The refugee influx into the Cox’s Bazar district has caused a significant impact on local forests and amplified human-wildlife conflict. It is estimated that the equivalent of 3-5 football fields of forest are felled every day in the area. Important national and community forestry areas, which were already under significant pressure before the influx, have been further degraded, limiting opportunities for local communities depending on forestry projects to supplement their livelihoods..."