Why settle for a Jashore without trees?
While the world is finally waking up to the dangers of wrecking ecosystems, and engineers and policymakers around the world are finding ways to minimise the impact of development on the environment, Bangladesh is cutting trees like there's no tomorrow.
Authorities are planning tree-cutting in Jashore, Chattogram, Dinajpur and Gaibandha to make way for roads and highways. In Faridpur, trees are to be axed for a state-owned luxury resort. In Rangpur and Kushtia, they are being sacrificed at the altar of greed. In Habiganj, over a hundred trees are being cut in the name of "beautification." In Naogaon, a lush, dense forest is being cleared in the name of "restoration and conservation of biodiversity," leaving behind a desert.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Yes, there are circumstances under which cutting trees is unavoidable, or even beneficial for people and the environment. But unfortunately, in all of these cases, we are being asked to accept unimaginative, short-term development solutions—if not outright greed, corruption and deceit.
A lack of imagination
In 2018, the Road Transport and Highways Division (RTHD) wanted to cut down 2,312 trees lining the famous Jashore Road to make way for a four-lane highway. The centuries-old trees lining Jashore Road have a special historical, literary, and cultural significance, having inspired poets and songwriters from around the world, and having shaded the paths of millions of dispossessed and displaced migrants as they fled to India in 1971. Felling these trees would have been an affront to the memory of the Liberation War.
But significantly, we saw that it wasn't trees that were standing in the way of better roads. It was a lack of ingenuity and foresight. Across the Indian border in Petrapole, the old trees were preserved in a median, and the road was expanded without cutting trees. Environmentalists and academics asked why the government in Bangladesh had not even considered the possibility of a dual-carriage road, with a parallel road (or roads) on the outside of the trees lining the highway. The RTHD conceded that the government in fact had land available on either side of the highway.
If my country is capable of producing a work of engineering like the Padma Bridge at the cusp of human capability, then I am unprepared to accept such mediocre and short-sighted thinking as "must cut trees to widen the road" any more. Especially when the cost is especially high in our case.
After widespread opposition, the Jashore Road tree-felling plans were scrapped. Unfortunately, other highways and other trees simply don't have the star power that Jashore Road has. But the solutions proposed as alternatives to tree-cutting in Jashore certainly hold true elsewhere. There must be an earnest effort to find alternatives to cutting trees or damaging the ecosystem in any infrastructure development project.
And what if there are no alternatives? The minimum requirement anywhere, including per the laws and policies of Bangladesh, is that there must be a social and environmental impact assessment before cutting down trees. In most cases, these are also not conducted.
Building with ambition
The state of California is currently building a high-speed railway from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a distance of 1,249 kilometres of harsh terrain including a mountain range. The project is not free of politics, corruption or controversy. But throughout this mammoth project, there is the commitment to conserving the diverse and complex ecosystems that the railway traverses. The ecological footprint of every aspect is taken into consideration, from emissions to waste management, contamination of water and agricultural land, disruption of wildlife corridors, community health and safety risks, and trees.
The California High Speed Rail is one of hundreds of examples around the world, and it pales in comparison to what Germany and Japan are doing.
Why can't Bangladesh have this kind of ambition? People will say we're a "poor country." But the World Bank reported that Bangladesh spends more money per kilometre of roads or highways than most other countries in the world. The four-lane highway from Bhanga to Benapole cost $14 million per kilometre, over 10 times the average cost in India or China. One may compare the roads in China with ours, as well as the landscapes, and ponder where the resources go. It's safe to say that we are a nation of great resources flowing to the wrong pockets.
And yet, when we do manage to properly direct the resources, we build megaprojects that are worth boasting about. The Padma Bridge is paraded as an engineering marvel (not very eco-friendly, perhaps, but we're talking about ambition), and indeed, it is a remarkable accomplishment, featuring daring innovations to uniquely Bangladeshi geological challenges, and the country can be proud of the result. But pride won't save lives or fill bellies.
My humble contention is that if my country is capable of producing a work of engineering at the cusp of human capability, then I am unprepared to accept such mediocre and short-sighted thinking as "must cut trees to widen the road" any more. Especially when the cost is especially high in our case.
Cost-benefit analysis
Fewer trees means less rain, more heat and erosion, which leads to poor health, salinisation, desertification, and displacement. If this is difficult to imagine in a place so lovely as Jashore, just go one district south to Satkhira, to Protapnagar, Padmapukur, Gabura, to the vast desert landscapes, the clamour of NGO signboards, and the stories of ruin.
Preserving trees is only a start. For a country whose life and culture are so closely tied to its soil and its environment, Bangladesh should be a leader in eco-friendly development. The fact is that we need the roads as badly as we need the ecosystem. So, the trees, shrubs, canals, flora and fauna—all of them must be integrated into projects, rather than being replaced by them.
Bad connectivity and unsafe highways are unacceptable in the 21st century. But if we build, we should build like world leaders. Every infrastructure project in Bangladesh should be an example in efficiency, foresight and eco-friendly design. What's lacking is not solutions. It's the desire and drive to find and demand them.
Naushad Ali Husein writes about human rights, ethics, migration, and environment. He can be reached at naushad.ali.husein@gmail.com.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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