Thrust on sustainable land management in Barind region

FE Team | Published: April 22, 2019 21:15:10

RAJSHAHI, Apr 22 (BSS): Speakers at a participatory discussion in the district town put emphasis on ensuring a sustainable land management to address the existing challenges of enhancing land productivity and water use efficiency in Barind region.
The speakers said time has come to stimulate innovative possibilities with building a shared understanding to amplify the potentials and reduce the adversities in the dry areas.
Measures should be strengthened to improve land resources and ecosystems including soil, water, flora and fauna, they added.
The speakers were addressing a daylong validation meeting on Sustainable Land Management (SLM) organised by the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) in the city.
More than 30 scientists, researchers, development activists and other stakeholders attended the meeting initiated by a project titled "Establishing National Land Use and Land Degradation Profile towards Mainstreaming SLM Practices in Sector Policies".
BMDA Chairman Dr Akram Hossain Chowdhury addressed the meeting as chief guest with its Executive Director Engineer Abdur Rashid in the chair.
Professor Nurul Alam from Department of Crop Science and Technology in Rajshahi University, Additional Director of Department of Agriculture Extension Deb Dulal Dhali and BMDA Superintending Engineers Shamsul Huda and Dr Abul Kashem also spoke.
During keynote presentations, Dr Jalal Uddin Soaib, coordinator of the project, and its focal person ATM Rafiqul Islam gave an overview of the project and its implementation strategy.
They told the meeting that the two-year project is intended to increase understanding of people about land use and state of land degradation alongside mainstreaming SLM in every sector.
As a whole, the scheme will focus on land degradation and other critical environmental hazards and demonstrate practical solutions through awareness building and engagement of stakeholders, organisers said.
In his remarks, Dr Akram Chowdhury said ensuring a prudent use of land resources has become a major challenge as the agricultural land in the country is shrinking at an alarming rate.
He laid importance on evolving time-befitting ways and means to protect lands from further degradation against the backdrop of increasing demand for land for development purposes and multipurpose uses.