THE felling of century-old Jessore-Benapole highway trees has been halted for six months in the backdrop of protests against the government’s solution to widen the road. While issuing the status-quo, the High Court also issued a rule asking the government to explain why the decision to chop down the trees should not be declared illegal.
The bench of Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir came up with the order and rule following a writ petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh. In its statement, the court said the government can continue development work of the road, but without chopping down the trees on the road.
Last July, the authorities took the decision of chopping down 2,700 trees on the highway, many of which stand majestically on both sides of the road throughout well over a century. The “development project” taken was to widen a 30-kilometre segment of the highway. However, since then, protests have been brewing all over social media and environmental groups have been demonstrating against what they called a “shocking decision”.
The chopping down of trees unfortunately can’t be stopped for purely sentimental reasons as development for all areas of Bangladesh is sorely needed–especially for transportation. Surely no one can object to the fact that highways are needed–the more the merrier, as we need 4 to 8 lanes to be future proof in terms of the traffic we expect to see in the future.
However there remains a caveat–why can’t proper planning be done so that the environmental damage be minimised. Why can’t we both have trees and a proper highway? We are sure that with proper planning the road could be increased in dimensions while simultaneously keeping the trees which are such an important part of the local ecology and greenery.
Planting trees besides highways is nothing new in Bengal–it probably started from the time of Emperor Ashoka and continued down to the Mughals and the British. There is absolutely no reason we can’t keep both our cultural and historical traditions alive and at the same time make a highway which would meet the demand of both the present and the future. Our Roads and Highways Department need to give more time to planning so that what remains of our ecology not be destroyed forever.
