‘Save green, be seen’

Commemorating World Environment Day, UNDP Bangladesh and The Daily Star jointly awarded the winners of "Save Green & Be Seen" mobile photography contest at The Daily Star Centre yesterday.

 The campaign invited people to capture eco-friendly activities around them and to showcase them to the rest of the world. The call for submission began on May 23, and ended on June 1.

Within the span of a week, the campaign received nearly 900 entries, out of which 30 were displayed during an exhibition at The Daily Star Centre.

The best eight exhibited photographs were awarded. The winners are Abdullah Al Junaid, Md Mehedi Hasan Patowary, Saqeeb Niloy, Sohel Rana, Tariqul Islam, Maisha Hoque, Mahmuda Hoque and Nasrifa Tun Naim.

The winning pictures featured various attempts towards conserving nature. The photographs featured unique concepts of plantation, cleanliness drives in the port city, reusing plastic bottles, and the specks of green present with a grey city landscape.

The event was attended Sudipto Mukherjee, country director, UNDP Bangladesh, and Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher, The Daily Star.

During his speech, Mukherjee looked back at the history of Environment Day and said, "This year, we are celebrating the 50th World Environment Day, an observance where a group of people discussed how poverty is related to the environment. Currently, our concern has shifted to the impact of affluence on the environment."

"This is something that we constantly have to tell the people near us in order to protect and preserve the nature we have," concluded Mahfuz Anam.