Every living being is dependent on trees in some way or the other. A lack of plants and forests can therefore threaten our very existence.
Given the increasingly crowded concrete jungle we are now living in, planting more and more trees has become imperative.
It would also save us a lot of unnecessary costs.
A tree that lives for 50 years can generate $31,500 worth of oxygen, provide $ 62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycle $37,500 worth of water, and prevent $31,500 worth of soil erosion.
Moreover, forests contribute to about 1.74% of the total GDP of Bangladesh.
The importance of trees and forests
Trees play an important role in protecting irrigation and hydraulic structures, also in keeping the rivers and ports navigable. It also plays a key role in protecting coastal areas from natural calamities.
Forests protect the environment from pollution and their contribution to biodiversity is immense. Forestry is a long-term production system. The multiple uses of forest resources have been recognised from the beginning of civilisation.
Trees serve as a natural habitat, providing support to a wide variety of flora and fauna. They provide a sense of privacy and security to the wildlife, seeking shelter in the woods, apart from providing them with food and nutrients.
Trees remove excess amounts of carbon dioxide and air pollutants in attendance in the atmosphere, including sulfur dioxide, ozone and nitrogen oxide. In return, they give us oxygen required for living life.
Even the biodiversity gets enriched in turn.
Trees regulate the climate by moderating the effects of the sun, wind and rain. While they moderate summer temperatures by providing shade, in winters, they act as windbreaks for home, thus helping save on heating costs.
Trees reduce soil erosion and also help to improve the fertility of soil. Rich soil transfers nutrients to food, which contributes to human health.
Other benefits
The greenery of trees adds colour to the landscape and enhances its beauty.
Trees and shrubs planted around homes also provide evaporative cooling benefits.
They are great absorbers of noise.
Noise pollution can be reduced to a great extent by planting more and more trees. Planting of trees facilitates better management of flood water.
Trees also moderate flood hazards by allowing the rainwater to percolate into the soil, instead of running over it.
We should be doing everything in our power to plant more trees both in rural and urban areas to ensure our future environmental, ecological, and climate security
The demand for clean drinking water can also be met by planting new trees. Forests and plants naturally slow the runoff of rainwater, thereby filtering it. Once slowed, rainwater seeps down to refill underground storage tanks or aquifers.
Also, they prevent water from mixing with the salt water of oceans. This is of immense help, as salty water takes much longer to re-enter the fresh water portion of the hydrological cycle.
Combat climate change
Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change.
This is due to our geographic location, population explosion, floodplains, incidences of poverty and overwhelming dependence on natural resources.
Global warming, as a result of climate change, will eventually reduce food productivity, availability of fresh water, increase environmental hazards, energy conflict, mass migration and increase diseases -- malaria, diarrhoea, and AIDS.
Climate change not only affects human development and biodiversity conservation but also poses a threat to human security.
No country knows this better than Bangladesh, where millions of people are suffering as a result. Sudden, severe catastrophic floods and cyclones have increased in intensity and frequency in recent times, owing to increased rainfall in the monsoon.
As the sea level rises, Bangladesh is experiencing the brutal after-effects of coastal inundation and erosion, cyclones, salinity intrusion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, agricultural land shrinking and large scale migration.
Scientists predict that, due to tropical cyclones and salinity intrusion into farming lands in coastal areas, environmental refugees will exceed 20 million in the coming future.
Equipped with this foreknowledge, we should be doing everything in our power to plant more trees both in rural and urban areas to ensure our future environmental, ecological, and climate security.
A concerted effort
In Bangladesh, social forestry programs have to be introduced at grassroots levels with a view to meeting the forest product requirements of local population and to reverse the ecological and climatic degradation.
Through such programs not only can we increase our capacity for conservation of soil and water resources but also improve socio-economic conditions for our population. In particular, they can provide much needed employment opportunities to the rural population
Apart from that, we have to escalate plantation efforts to meet the demand for fuel wood, small timber, bamboo, fodder, and other minor forest produces on sustainable basis.
A national focus on plantation efforts, supported by appropriate policy, will allow cottage industries to develop in rural areas; we can also utilise the available land to the best advantage according to its production capacity.
Shishir Reza is an environment analyst and associate member of Bangladesh Economic Association.