Md. Atowar Rahman, Nilphamari :
“Let us become friends of birds and save the beautiful earth,” with this slogan, a group of youths of Khalisha Belpukur Village in Saidpur upazila have initiated an outstanding effort to make secured habitat for birds in order to protecting them from being extinction and saving the environment as well.
They formed a voluntary organization with Bangla name ‘Setubondhon’ to indicate a bridge between humane and birds which they doing by managing cost from own pockets.
Visiting the village on Sunday, it was found that ‘Setubandhan’ members set up hundreds of earthen pitchers in slightly tilted position with straw or dried up leaves inside on tree branches beside roads, bank of ponds, around cultivable land, house yards and so on .
They do it to arrange birds’ ready nests for making their safe habitat for breeding, as this endangered wildlife don’t find congenial situation to do so in absence of mother threes.
In some of those pitchers, birds in pairs have started living like a family as their breeding season on and while they peep through narrow mouths of pitchers create a sense of joy.
They also arrange house yard meeting to create awareness among people for birds and hang signboards elsewhere with message, “Let’s become friends of birds and save the beautiful earth,”
The pioneer of the excellent effort, a local youth Alamgir Hossain who has an orchard in the village explained how he became interested to initiate his noble mission for birds.
He said, “I noticed in my orchard that many birds look for mother trees to make nests on them but fail to get as people felled them for getting quick profit without considering negative impact on environment.”
People now plant foreign variety woody trees which standing upright seldom having branches and bushy tops unsuitable for making nests for local birds, he said.
“By this time, many spices of birds have disappeared though they adorn nature and play important role in agriculture by eating up harmful insects,” he told further.
Alamgir talked to his friends like Rashidul, Sirajul, Rifat, Rafi, Twinkle Rashedurzaman and others for doing something for the birds who unanimously accepted his proposal.
Last year they experimentally set up some earthen pitchers on some trees in Alamgir’s orchard and found that birds’ felt interest for the effort.
Being inspired, they decided to launch a bigger programme this season by setting up pitchers on hundreds of trees in the entire village for making it as if a birds’ sanctuary.
Rafiqul, a dedicated member of ‘Setubandhan’said that by this time they had set up more than four hundred pitchers on trees arranging fund from own subscription in which Alamgir contributed the major share and birds like Shalikh, Doel, owls, doves liked those.
Chairman of concerned Kashiram Belpukur union parishad Jewel Ahmed said that at first the villagers took the local youths’ effort as meaningless but now they take care of the pitchers and birds’ families as they could realize their importance in their lives.
Cross section of people and organization officials like NGO Alorpoth Samaj Unnayan Sangstha, upazila asst. agriculture officer, journalists and others visited the village
Head of Zoology Dept in Nilphamari Govt College Prof. Shahebul Alam said that saving endangered wildlife like birds is a global concern. Innovative effort of village youths’ should be made sustaining by providing them with logistic support by govt. and NGOs.
Upazila agriculture officer Homayara Mondol said that such effort would play significant role to protect environment and increase food production, which should be patronized.
