When was the last time we spotted a flock of crows circling Dhaka’s sky? Or a butterfly dancing aimlessly? When did they become a distant memory?
This silent disappearance is not just another tale of urban nostalgia, it’s a warning. A warning that the urban ecosystem is collapsing, and has already become unfit for our wise winged scavengers, our delicate pollinators, and surely, for us.
We tuck inhalers into our bags as routinely as water bottles, while headlines announcing Dhaka's ranking among the world's most polluted cities no longer warrant raised brows.
The sight of rain ushers in worries of commute inconvenience instead of relief. These are not (and should not be) the inevitable side effects of development. They are the costs of building cities that have persistently severed the roots of nature from its landscape.
What solutions exist, and what is holding us back from acting on them? This pressing question was posed to Md Solaiman Haider, Director of the Department of Environment; Dr Md Niamul Naser, Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Dhaka; and Arif M Faisal, Program Specialist for Environment and Energy at UNDP on June 9 during a panel discussion moderated by Dr Haseeb Md. Irfanullah, visiting research fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development, on behalf of the Department of Environmental Studies and Sustainability, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh.
The experts unanimously agreed that the solution is not simple but obvious: Putting into practice what we already know about nature, and reviving our traditional and indigenous knowledge that has long guided our relationship with the environment.
While noting that the barriers are many, the core challenges remain a lack of willingness to prioritize nature in the development agendas and weak institutional coordination across agencies.
Hatirjheel stands as a reminder of what becomes possible when cities work with nature instead of against it. The restoration of its degraded wetland and canal system transformed a flood-prone, neglected stretch of the city into a functional water-retention zone, while simultaneously improving urban livability and reconnecting Dhaka with a fragment of its lost ecological heritage.
At a time when waterlogging has become a recurring feature of urban life, Hatirjheel offers the compelling lesson that nature is not an obstacle to development, but one of its most effective allies.
Even routine efforts like tree plantations can make a real difference, but only when grounded in ecological understanding rather than treated as symbolic quota-filling exercises. “How” we plant matters as much as “how much” we plant.
From roadside plantations to rooftop gardens, every step has the potential to ease the cities’ suffocation if guided by ecological knowledge rather than aesthetic impulse.
Yet the reason such solutions remain the exception rather than the norm lies in systemic failures.
Urban development, water management, transportation, and environmental conservation continue to be planned in silos. And the consequences are visible everywhere, wetlands disappear in the name of expansion, natural drainage channels are disrupted by infrastructure projects, and tree-planting initiatives proceed without ecological planning, while public investment remains heavily tilted toward gray infrastructure.
But the challenges do not end there. How do we build public awareness around nature-based solutions? In a densely populated city like Dhaka, how can ecological restoration take place without displacing the very people who call it home?
Students in the audience raised these concerns as a reminder that even the most ambitious environmental ideas cannot succeed without community participation. The discussion emphasized that nature-based solutions must be accompanied by behavioral shifts and stronger local systems, from encouraging simple habits such as reducing, reusing, and recycling waste to improving municipal waste collection and management.
Yet lasting change requires more than information campaigns. People are rarely persuaded by environmental appeals alone; they respond to tangible improvements in their daily lives.
Nature-based solutions must, therefore, be integrated in ways that enhance convenience, livelihoods, and urban well-being, while environmental education should be non-negotiable, beginning early and reinforced through incentives that encourage lasting behavioral change.
Equally important, if not more, ecological restoration must be pursued in ways that align environmental recovery with social realities, recognizing the value of natural capital without overlooking the needs and rights of the communities that depend on these spaces.
The problem is not a lack of solutions, but a failure to let them take root. Our cities do not need to be reinvented, so much as reconnected to their wetlands, their trees, and the ecological logic they once lived by.
Whether those elements return as memory or as reality will depend on the choices made now, in the space between planning and action.
Isra Tahiya Islam is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), and a graduate of the Department of English and Humanities, ULAB.
