President’s call for social afforestation

The terrifying reality in Bangladesh is 50% of the country’s forests have been destroyed in the last 20 years

President Abdul Hamid on Wednesday rightly underscored the need for social afforestation for the country’s socio-economic development. He stated this while addressing a tree plantation programme of the National Tree Plantation Campaign and Tree Fair 2016. In these days of climate change, the need for social afforestation can hardly be overemphasised. The point, however, is we the people of Bangladesh will have to collectively act upon the call of afforestation based on factual reasons. 
Opposite to reforestation, afforestation is the process of planting trees, or sowing seeds, in a barren land devoid of any trees to create a forest. The natural environment of our country has been constantly trying to cope with the way in which we are exhausting her resources, clearing forest lands, cutting trees while perpetually contaminating the air, land and water. Additionally, given the fast and intensified occurrence of climate change, social afforestation has become doubly important for us than many other countries within our neighborhood and the world.
The terrifying reality in Bangladesh is 50% of the country’s forests have been destroyed in the last 20 years. Indiscriminate felling of trees in the greater parts of Dhaka, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Teknaf and the Bandarbans has resulted in a fast depletion of forests which is alarming. Moreover, against the need of the required 25% forest, Bangladesh now has a mere 10% (UNESCO), though the government claims it is 17%. Therefore, the president’s call was indeed a matter of grave concern.
Among the participants of the tree plantation programme, there were important ministers of Environment and Forest Minister, Housing and Public Works Minister, Deputy Minister for Environment and Forest and many others, besides the president. In fact, all these ministries have an important role to play for promoting social afforestation individually. All of them must unite for an all-out effort to make the president’s call into a success. Not that we don’t have a success story in this regard, at a much smaller scale social afforestation programme has been successful in improving the environment and bringing self-reliance to thousands of the rural poor in Rangpur. 
It has greatly helped in alleviating poverty under the programme in recent years and children of the beneficiaries are now going to schools, wearing better clothes, using sanitary latrines and living a better life. In short, their life has improved. We need to build on this while increasing the numbers of such successful stories. The repercussions of skinning the earth alive are grave and we are witnessing it. Saving our earth by planting trees should be one of our avowed goals. 

 

Presidents call for social afforestation

The terrifying reality in Bangladesh is 50% of the countrys forests have been destroyed in the last 20 years

President Abdul Hamid on Wednesday rightly underscored the need for social afforestation for the countrys socio-economic development. He stated this while addressing a tree plantation programme of the National Tree Plantation Campaign and Tree Fair 2016. In these days of climate change, the need for social afforestation can hardly be overemphasised. The point, however, is we the people of Bangladesh will have to collectively act upon the call of afforestation based on factual reasons. Opposite to reforestation, afforestation is the process of planting trees, or sowing seeds, in a barren land devoid of any trees to create a forest. The natural environment of our country has been constantly trying to cope with the way in which we are exhausting her resources, clearing forest lands, cutting trees while perpetually contaminating the air, land and water. Additionally, given the fast and intensified occurrence of climate change, social afforestation has become doubly important for us than many other countries within our neighborhood and the world. The terrifying reality in Bangladesh is 50% of the countrys forests have been destroyed in the last 20 years. Indiscriminate felling of trees in the greater parts of Dhaka, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Teknaf and the Bandarbans has resulted in a fast depletion of forests which is alarming. Moreover, against the need of the required 25% forest, Bangladesh now has a mere 10% (UNESCO), though the government claims it is 17%. Therefore, the presidents call was indeed a matter of grave concern. Among the participants of the tree plantation programme, there were important ministers of Environment and Forest Minister, Housing and Public Works Minister, Deputy Minister for Environment and Forest and many others, besides the president. In fact, all these ministries have an important role to play for promoting social afforestation individually. All of them must unite for an all-out effort to make the presidents call into a success. Not that we dont have a success story in this regard, at a much smaller scale social afforestation programme has been successful in improving the environment and bringing self-reliance to thousands of the rural poor in Rangpur. It has greatly helped in alleviating poverty under the programme in recent years and children of the beneficiaries are now going to schools, wearing better clothes, using sanitary latrines and living a better life. In short, their life has improved. We need to build on this while increasing the numbers of such successful stories. The repercussions of skinning the earth alive are grave and we are witnessing it. Saving our earth by planting trees should be one of our avowed goals.