| Editorial Axing our own legs? Ripan Kumar Biswas
WHENEVER I see the 70-foot-tall digital billboard outside Penn Station in Manhattan, New York, displaying the running total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, I feel scared because the changing climate is pushing many natural systems towards critical thresholds and will alter regional and global environmental balances.
We are altering the environment far faster than the prediction of the consequences. Comparable climate shifts have happened before, but over tens of centuries, not tens of years. The unprecedented rapid change could accelerate the already high rate of species extinction as plants and animals fail to adapt quickly enough. For the first time in history, humans are affecting the ecological balance of not just a region but also of the entire world, all at once.
Almost every day we hear of yet another problem, like pollution, acid rain, global warming, the destruction of rainforests and other wild habitats, the decline and extinction of thousands of species of animals and plants....and so on. We have the economic, intellectual and technological know-how to head off this calamity and avoid the disruption and misery that inaction would entail. These range from energy saving measures and clean and renewable energy sources, to more efficient transport and better planning and management of our economies.
The solutions are probably numerous and, according to many economists, ecologists, and environmentalists, even affordable when compared with the cost of complacency. But forests and trees can play a central and pivotal role in slowing down and reversing some of the damage of climate change if we utilise and manage them properly. At the global level, trees and forests are closely linked with weather patterns and also the maintenance of a crucial balance in nature.
As trees offer numerous benefits for mankind, wildlife and the environment, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has launched a major worldwide tree planting campaign. Under the "Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign," people, communities, business and industry, civil society organisations and governments are encouraged to make tree planting pledges with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide each year. In a call to further individual and collective action, Unep has set a new goal of planting 7 billion trees by the end of 2009. The campaign strongly encourages the planting of trees that are indigenous and appropriate to the local environment.
While the movement towards a deeper commitment to environmental protection through planting new trees and taking care of the existing ones is rapidly increasing all over the world, a 10 km stretch of Teknaf beach in southeastern Bangladesh has turned barren after over 30,000 jhau (tamarisk) trees were felled by a section of local influential people during September 7-13. The forest department and other law enforcement agencies remained silent spectators of the mindless tree felling.
This report surely doesn't match with the government's earlier declaration that says that the government is going to give over 700,000 acres of land for tree plantation through a national campaign this year as part of Bangladesh's Climate Change Strategy Action Plan, which was finalised by an inter-ministerial committee on August 26.
Although law enforcement agencies arrested over half a dozen people including a former forest guard on charges of felling the tress, and recovered about 7,500 felled trees, the damage done to the environment through denuding the land will bring irremediable natural calamity to the coastal life of Teknaf. As coastal forests act as bioshields, around half a million tamarisk trees were planted in 1995 on 700 acres of sandy beach on a stretch of about 10 km from Shahparir Dwip in Sabrang Union of the upazila to Baharchhara to protect the lives and properties of the people from erosion. But now this stretch will be at risk in any natural disaster like cyclone and tidal surge as it has become denuded land.
People who can no longer farm on eroding coastal land are moving inward to cities already crammed with jobless and desperate masses. Smaller than Illinois, US, Bangladesh has 152.6 million people, half the US population. Imagine what it will be like in 50 years, when the Bay of Bengal is predicted to cover 11 percent of Bangladesh's land. By some estimates, a one-meter sea level rise would submerge about one-third of Bangladesh's total area, uprooting 25-30 million people.
Bangladesh is set to disappear under the waves by the end of the century, says Nasa. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that Bangladesh was on course to lose 17% of its land and 30% of its food production by 2050. Bangladesh has already begun to feel the effects of climate change as flood periods have become longer and cyclones cause greater devastation. As sea levels rise, the IPCC warned that 35 million refugees could flee Bangladesh's flooded delta by 2050.
"We have a short time to avert serious climate change. We need action and we need to plant trees. Countering climate change can take root via one billion small but significant acts in our gardens, parks, countryside and rural areas," said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of Unep, at the launching of the "Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign." The same call was made by President Bangladesh Zillur Rahman when he inaugurated the afforestation programme-2009 on June 25. "We have to plant trees to bring back the lost serene environment," he said. Globally, forest cover is at least one-third less of what it once was.
Trees provide not only environmental protection but also significant income and livelihood options for more than one billion forest-dependent people in the world. Trees provide a wide range of products such as timber, fruit, medicine, beverages and fodder, and services like carbon sequestration, shade, beautification, erosion control, soil fertility. Without trees human life would be unsustainable. Their beauty adds diversity to the world's natural landscape. Trees also play an important cultural, spiritual and recreational role in many societies. In some cases, they are integral to the very definition and survival of indigenous and traditional cultures.
While we need to plant and preserve existing trees and forests to restore the earth's forests cover and the expanding carbon sinks, and to lessen the impact of global warming, some influential people in Bangladesh don't hesitate to destroy the valuable trees and forests for their ulterior motives. And their illegal attempts repeatedly prove beyond any doubt the government's concern about the environment and greenery at the field level..
The longer the risk is ignored, the more drastic the consequences will be.
Ripan Kumar Biswas is a columnist for The Daily Star. E-mail: Ripan.biswas@yahoo.com | |
