World Environment Day 2016

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• published: 12 Jun 2016
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Dear viewers, the World Environment Day is being observed worldwide in 5th June every year. To create awareness to conserve the environment worldwide, this Day is observed in various countries along with Bangladesh. To discuss about this, we have with us, Dr. Ainun Nishat, River and Climate Specialist Mr. Raisul Alam Mondal, Director General, Department of Environment and Mr. Md. Yunus Ali, Chief Conservator of Forests, Department of Forests. Mr. Raisul Alam Mondal, would you please tell us about the theme of this year’s World Environment Day? The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) fixed the date to be 5th June of each year to observe this Day. The Day is being observed worldwide from 1973 and in every year a slogan and a theme is given by the UNEP. This year’s slogan is ‘Go Wild for Life’. The Government of Bangladesh has given the slogan in Bengali as ‘Bonnoprani o poribesh, bachai prokriti, bachai desh’ (Along with the wildlife and environment, let’s save the nature and the country). Very nice theme. Focusing on this slogan we have planned many programs for this year’s World Environment Day, in order to inform the general people as well as to emphasize the conservation of environment and decisions making about the issues of climate change by the political leaders. The activities have been taken to make the public along with the civil society more conscious about this. I’ll come back to you again. Mr. Md. Yunus Ali, do you have any theme on behalf of the Forest Department? Yes. We have confirmed a theme nationally, ‘Trees for lives, trees for livelihoods’. And it has a meaning of long term impact. Forest Department conserves the forests, it has a historical relationship with the lives and livelihoods of the people. The new issue is the forestation for the livelihoods. It is not only done by the Government but also by the individuals, civil societies. They all are now doing this so that they can find a new source of their livelihood. What kind of activities do you have this time? Our activities are in the district level, divisional level and also in the national level. There will be tree fair in district and divisional levels and the national level fair will be in Dhaka. From this fair, people will be able to collect seedlings personally from the nurseries and will learn the techniques of producing seedlings and forestation. This time we are popularizing the uncommon fruits like Elephant Apple and others. We have taken decision in the seventh 5 years plan that we will popularize these uncommon fruits among the people and hand over the nursery techniques to all. I’ll come back to you again. Dr. Ainun Nishat, how Bangladesh is being affected by the environmental disasters? If I focus on the theme of this year, then we are facing problems in management. The reason is human population. When the British left this country in 1947, then the population was 40 million. Now there are more or less 170 million people. On that time, most of the people were dependent on agriculture. Presently, the percentage of agriculture in GDP is under 20%. The process of industrialization and urbanization is continuously progressing, no argue with that. But these processes are conflicting with the natural environment. When we are doing industrialization, both the liquid and solid wastes are being produced. Now the rule is to treat the wastes first and then release those in the environment. But this is not happening. It is not that there is a deficiency of laws. Also I don’t want to blame any organization. Because, those who are dumping wastes are causing pollution. It is not possible to stop crime by patrolling all the time. Patrolling is done to control or reduce the crime. That means the polluters need to be encouraged to stop this. Along with this, we have achieved many good things. But we need to judge whether we are achieving in a right way or not. For example, we have become self-sufficient in food production. Our food production has reached 35-37 million metric tons from 6 million. To achieve this, we have increased pressure on the underground water. We have started cultivating paddy in the river bed by removing the surface water. That means we are killing the rivers. The production of fish hatchlings in the Halda River is not satisfactory this year. Because when we are using the fresh water of the rivers for agriculture, then the salt water from the sea is entering into the rivers and thus reducing the production of minnows. There are many conserved areas of the Forest Department named Sanctuaries, Protected Areas, Game Reserves. It is very hard to protect these declared places. Because, there is a pressure from people living around those places. They are cutting trees, making the forestland into cultivating land by clearing it. I would like to highlight another issue that is wildlife means not only wild animals but also wild plants.