5 June 2013, Bdnews24 news - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said that her government planned to extend the nation’s forest to cover 20 percent of the country’s land area within two years.
The Prime Minister said this on Wednesday while inaugurating a three-month-long Tree Plantation Campaign and a month-long Tree Fair-2013 on the World Environment Day at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in capital Dhaka.
She said that the government was working ‘tirelessly’ to protect the environment and forests.
“We’ve taken initiatives to bring 20 percent of the country’s total land under forests by 2015,” she said.
She said the government had also initiated moves to set up power plants driven by fuel produced from waste materials. This would, on the one side, increase electricity supply and reduce garbage, on the other, she said.
Hasina planted a mango sapling at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre and saw the various stalls at the tree fair being held at the international trade fair complex.
The UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, had approved the starting of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). That very year, the UN, at the plenary session of its 27th General Assembly, had decided to observe June 5 as the World Environment Day to create environmental awareness.
This year, the day is being observed across the country as elsewhere in the world under the UN theme: 'Think, Eat, Save'.
The Prime Minister gave away the National Environment Award, Bangabandhu Award for Wildlife Conservation
and Prime Minister's special award for tree plantation and environment protection.
She congratulated individuals and organizations awarded this year for conservation of nature, wildlife and protection of the environment and award winners of the social forestry programme.
She also unveiled a commemorative stamp on World Environment Day 2013.
Three people won the National Environment Award, and three others were given the Bangabandhu Award for Wildlife Conservation in different categories. The Prime Minister's special award for tree plantation went to 30 people and organisations.
Yusuf Mollah of Dubil village of Tanore, in Rajshahi district, got the National Environment Award for his contribution to the conservation of different varieties of indigenous rice seeds over the past three decades.
Sharif Khan, also a recipient of this award, was chosen for the honour for his contribution to the spread of environment education.
The Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) was selected for its research and technological innovation.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sought everybody’s cooperation in preventing the felling of roadside trees during political agitations, and urged people not to harm nature.
She lambasted the BNP, Jammat and Hifazat-e Islam for indiscriminately felling trees, particularly those on road dividers, during their political agitation in the capital and other parts of the country on May 5.
She also urged the authorities to take legal action under the Environment Act against those who had committed the offence.
“I urge the destroyers of the trees to take part in the tree plantation programme during this national tree-plantation month,” Hasina said in an appeal to heal the wounds inflicted on nature.
The Prime Minister urged every citizen to plant at least three saplings - one of a fruit tree, one of herbal medicine and another that would produce timber - during the rainy season.
To protect nature, she also suggested the planting of trees in and around open spaces, homes, barren lands, along roads and railway tracks, river embankments and newly risen chars.
The Prime Minister said that the government had allocated around Tk 25 billion from its own resources to the Climate Change Trust Fund while a resilience fund had been created with the assistance of development partners.
