A NATIONAL daily reported that despite big talks by the government about success in countrywide afforestation programme, natural forest and plantations are only shrinking due to man-made destruction viz. illegal felling of trees and clearing of forest land for agriculture, homestead and other non-forest commercial activities. It is alarming that about 50 percent of the country’s forests have been destroyed from 1980 and the rate of destruction has hit 37,000 hectares per year now. The scanty afforestation at huge cost that the government talks about highlighting its success with most funds misused, the net annual deforestation rate is now 3.3 percent and it is feared that if this process continues, a large part of Bangladesh would turn into desert. Floods and droughts would hit the nation at a time when the sea level rise from global warming is threatening over 17 percent of the coastal population to be dislocated being affected by tidal surge. Forest is treated as the best defense against natural calamities.
We know that wealthy people and politically powerful persons are regularly at work to destroy government forest and felling trees to make illegal fortune evading the eyes of local forest employees or in collusion with them bringing irreparable loss to the nation. The question is if the government keeps a blind eye on the destructive activities by its own people, forest employees make their own way to amass wealth; there is no way to save forest and the environment. Forests preserve the nature with shades to keep soil moisture at reasonable level. It leads to balance growth of temperature making easier the conditions of ecology to remain supportive to human life. Afforestation not only decreases carbon dioxide in the air, it also releases oxygen to keep people healthy. It influences rainfall patterns to support agriculture.
The report quoted a study as saying that if tropical forests were wiped out, it will lead to significant rise in temperatures to spread the greenhouse gas emissions in the air. Destroying forest would reduce rainfall affecting agriculture, vegetable plantation and habitat of animals making the nation vulnerable to natural calamities. It is unthinkable that the government action is poising the big threat to the world’s largest mangrove forest the Sundarbans and the ruling party has no sensitivities about it when it is allowing the setting up of a big coal fired power plant around it.
In our view the disclosure has come at a highly critical time for the nation to make every step to save our forest from greedy predators. We are losing forestland to commercial use but it must be compensated by vigorous afforestation schemes. Illegal felling must stop.
