Staff Reporter :
Environmentalists have said that a sustainable development policy for the country’s haors is needed widely.
“It is important to prepare a long lasting development goal for the haor areas,” said Dr. Abdul Matin, General Secretary of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (BAPA) while addressing a press conference in Dhaka Reporters’ Unity on Saturday.
BAPA and Bangladesh Paribesh Network (BEN) jointly arranged the press conference for publishing the proposals entitled “Stable development target and environment.”
The BAPA General Secretary asked the government not to build roads through the haors with a view to protect it from decaying.
“Please do not destroy the haors by building roads on it. If it is needed for travel of people then build higher flyovers over it. There are huge examples in the world in this regard,” he said.
Dr. Matin said, “Haors are our historic assets. We should give it wide importance. We need to protect it from decaying.”
He said there is no development policy about our haors, rivers and other important resources.
Professor Shahidul Islam of Dhaka University said, “We have huge natural resources in haors, rivers and the Bay of Bengal. But we have not any particular planning or policy to use those wealth properly.”
“We need specific policies that how to retrieve the wealth from the haors,” he said.
Shahidul Islam said that the government and others are saying about cultivating hybrid rice in the haor areas. “This rice needs six months to ripe but the flood water comes there within four months. In these circumstances, the rice must sink and rot.”
