For getting value out of afforestation

It is indeed a very welcome piece of news that the Finance Minister AMA Muhith in his budget speech took note of the ongoing process of denuding of our precious forests areas and revealed that the government has plans for an extensive afforestation programme to combat the adverse impact of climate change. The minister also informed that the government has already declared 34 places as reserved forest areas.
The climate change has already caused havoc to our environment. The country previously witnessed super cyclones such as Aila and Sidr that displaced hundreds and thousands of people of the southern region of the country. The people of this deltaic region are also experiencing extremes of weather conditions due to climate change.
According to statistics, for the last three decades denuding of forest covers is going on at the rate of 2.1 per cent annually. But, for maintaining environmental balance, there is need of at least 16 per cent of forest cover of the total land in a country. But in reality in Bangladesh it is now feared to be down to 8 per cent only. It is an irony that when the scenario is so bleak, felling of trees is going on unabated in the reserved forests of the country. Some days ago it was reported in this newspaper that tribal people were indiscriminately destroying the unclassified forests in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) area and the forest department could not do anything to prevent them because of security reasons. Moreover, the campaign for social forestry is also conspicuously absent.
But any afforestation programme will not be able to bring the desired result if illegal logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, conversion of forest lands into non-forests settlements, etc., continue without checks. Theft of roadside trees is also rampant in many places. These felled trees mostly go to the brick-kilns of the country where use of woods for burning bricks remains banned. So, it is important to maintain vigilance against felling of forest trees and force the brick kilns owners to follow the rule for burning bricks.  In his budget speech the finance minister informed that Bangladesh Bank (BB) has created a refinancing scheme to finance environment-friendly products. It is expected that this refinancing programme of BB becomes successful in real terms.

For getting value out of afforestation

It is indeed a very welcome piece of news that the Finance Minister AMA Muhith in his budget speech took note of the ongoing process of denuding of our precious forests areas and revealed that the government has plans for an extensive afforestation programme to combat the adverse impact of climate change. The minister also informed that the government has already declared 34 places as reserved forest areas. The climate change has already caused havoc to our environment. The country previously witnessed super cyclones such as Aila and Sidr that displaced hundreds and thousands of people of the southern region of the country. The people of this deltaic region are also experiencing extremes of weather conditions due to climate change. According to statistics, for the last three decades denuding of forest covers is going on at the rate of 2.1 per cent annually. But, for maintaining environmental balance, there is need of at least 16 per cent of forest cover of the total land in a country. But in reality in Bangladesh it is now feared to be down to 8 per cent only. It is an irony that when the scenario is so bleak, felling of trees is going on unabated in the reserved forests of the country. Some days ago it was reported in this newspaper that tribal people were indiscriminately destroying the unclassified forests in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) area and the forest department could not do anything to prevent them because of security reasons. Moreover, the campaign for social forestry is also conspicuously absent. But any afforestation programme will not be able to bring the desired result if illegal logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, conversion of forest lands into non-forests settlements, etc., continue without checks. Theft of roadside trees is also rampant in many places. These felled trees mostly go to the brick-kilns of the country where use of woods for burning bricks remains banned. So, it is important to maintain vigilance against felling of forest trees and force the brick kilns owners to follow the rule for burning bricks. In his budget speech the finance minister informed that Bangladesh Bank (BB) has created a refinancing scheme to finance environment-friendly products. It is expected that this refinancing programme of BB becomes successful in real terms.