Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has said the work does not end with planting a tree. Everyone must look after the trees, he said: just as people care for their own child after it is born, they must care for a young sapling every day in the same way.

He made the remarks at 10am on Monday, 13 July, while inaugurating a tree-planting programme in Gournadi, Barishal, where he planted neem and hog plum saplings.

The prime minister said that before the election the government had announced two priority programmes: canal excavation and tree planting. The late President Ziaur Rahman had started this programme and former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia had carried it forward, he said. In that continuity, the present government has again launched a nationwide tree-planting drive.

He said that on his way to Barishal he had seen many people standing along both sides of the road with saplings in their hands. Some had planted them, others were getting ready to plant. He urged everyone to tend the trees with care.

Highlighting the effects of climate change, the prime minister said heavy rain had fallen in five districts including Chattogram, after a long spell with no rain before that. "Sometimes it rains too much, sometimes it does not rain at all," he said. Weather problems exist around the world, but they are worse in Bangladesh. Winters are no longer as cold as they used to be, and summer temperatures have risen. There is no alternative to planting trees widely across the country to deal with this situation, he said.

Earlier, he arrived on the bank of the newly excavated Sharikal-Batajor canal in Batajor union. Housewives and farmers greeted him from one bank of the canal, and he waved back to the villagers.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Zahir Uddin Swapan and leaders of the local BNP and its associate organisations were with the prime minister.

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