<i>How much greenery the city needs to have?</i>

Trees are essential for a city and a must for its beauty.

The city is gradually losing its greenery due to the lack of trees that caste an adverse impact on the environment but the authorities concerned have no data on existing trees and plants in the city and no concrete plan to increase the greenery.
Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and Department of Forest (DoF) plant trees in the city regularly but they do not follow up and maintain them. The DCC and DoF officials said there is no survey on the trees and plants in the city.
Iftekhar Ahmed, in-charge of the beautification wing of DCC, said DCC has no such data. Since 2004, the beautification wing engaged 117 private firms who got lease of some open spaces beside roads and beautified the spots by planting saplings.
“DCC does not have information on the plantation by those private firms,” he said.
Mizanur Rahman, owner of Bangladesh Publicity, one of the 117 private firms, said, “Spending 42,000 taka my company planted a huge number of saplings on the road dividers but I don't know how many of them will exist.”
He said protecting these trees is very difficult due to lack of awareness among people. It needs regular care and monitoring. “Drag addicts often steal iron fences around the saplings and people damage the them tearing leaves and branches,” he noted.
Experts say exiting amount of greenery in the city is too scanty. “A city should have greenery on 25 percent of its total area. I believe Dhaka city is far behind this,” said Shirina Khatun, assistant forest conserver, Social Forestation, Dhaka Division.
“I have learnt from a PWD document that the amount of greenery is not more than 3 percent of the total size of the city. However, there is no survey on this,” said Iftekhar.
Asked about the forest department's plantation programmes, Shirina said the forest department planted 3,18,290 trees in the city from 1993 to 2007 under several government projects. But at present no programme is running.
Forest department knows how many trees it has planted but does not know the required and existing amount of greenery in the city, she said.
About the present state of plant-population balance in the city, Iftekhar said, “I don't know if the number of plants is increasing or decreasing, but I feel the number of trees is not enough to support the increasing population of the city.”
He pointed out that lack of space for planting trees in the city is a key problem. Tree planting on the roofs of the houses could solve the problem partially. “But it requires a campaign to build public awareness,” Iftekhar added.
Experts say lack of trees increases health hazards and leads to environmental imbalance in the city where population is growing rapidly.
Dr Sarwar Jahan, professor of the Urban and Regional Planning Department at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said lack of tree in a city increases temperature and as a result the city consumes more power to be cooled.
“This situation leads to health hazards, waterlogging, depletion of groundwater table, increase of dust in air and different kinds environmental phenomena,” Sarwar said.