Staff correspondent/ reporter, (Date :__/__/__):
Trees are our best friends. Trees provide us with oxygen without which we cannot live. Trees provide us with wood and other products, give us shade and help to prevent drought and floods. But these friends of ours are being destroyed without discrimination.
Bangladesh is one of the countries in the world having the lowest rates of forestry. According to an estimate Bangladesh has only 6.7 percent of a forest, against 25 percent, and the country loses about 2,000 hectares of forest per year due to pressures of growing population and urbanization.
Expressing concern about deforestation in Bangladesh the Indonesia-based CIFOR said, “The deforestation so far reached an alarming 90 percent in Bangladesh and it may jump to 100 percent if the country did not implement its environmental policies.” However, disagreeing with CIFOR report a senior official of the Ministry of Forest and Environment said: “The government has implemented a set of environmental plans over the past three years and a new set of programs for a forestation has already been taken from June 2014.”
Because of deforestation Bangladesh is facing and going to face many natural calamities and disasters. Over the past few years, Bangladesh has experienced severe drought, floods, tidal surges, soil erosion, and other natural disasters. According to the climatologists, if deforestation in Bangladesh goes on at the present rate, it will soon turn into a desert. Therefore, it is high time we took effective measures to prevent deforestation by any means.
