Vacant land in Dhaka will be covered with grass and creepers by September, according to Mohammad Ejaz, administrator of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC).

He said grass, creepers and trees will be planted on every empty space in Dhaka. "Our work has begun under the Zero Soil programme. The cooperation of the administration, environmental organisations and citizens is essential for this work," he said.

He was speaking as chief guest at a special seminar held at the Department of Environment on Thursday (26 June) to mark World Environment Day. The seminar was organised by Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) and 33 environmental organisations.

Mohammad Ejaz said: "We do little work focused on cities. When people talk about climate resilience work they give priority to the coast, but the urban environment is now also at great risk. Dhaka currently has 13 lakh trees. If we want, we can double that. We have the space for it too."

He said: "In the last few months we have freed a number of places from encroachment and cleaned canals. For 30 years Dhaka's crisis was about whether any piece of land belonged to RAJUK or to Roads and Highways. In the last four months we have brought all these places under one umbrella. We have also taken the new Dhaka being built at Purbachal from RAJUK. There will be a climate-resilient area there. We are planting trees, so that the people who live there will live at temperatures two or three degrees lower. That will be arranged."

The DNCC administrator said large mega projects are under way in the city. In future, installing machines to measure air quality and noise will be made mandatory at these public and private construction sites.

He said: "Our city corporation is short of staff. We want everyone's cooperation. We want to sign memorandums of understanding with environmental organisations."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.