Increasing Dhaka's green spaces

Dhaka city has only a few open spaces for its citizens. As we step out of our homes, we hardly come across greenery around us. What we come across is just concrete buildings. In contrast, many big cities across the world are full of green and open spaces. There the citizens can walk, jog and enjoy their leisure time in open spaces. Sadly, our capital city has been gradually losing its green patches and we are totally oblivious of it.

At least 15 per cent of a city should have greenery, but we only have around 7.0 per cent in Dhaka city, which is totally inadequate, compared to the requirement. Probably that is the reason why we see the city temperature rising 3.0 to 4.0 degrees higher than normal temperature. According to Bangladesh Institute of Planners, in the last 28 years, green space in the capital has shrunk to 7 per cent while wetlands occupy as low as 2.9 per cent of the city. Currently, Dhaka has only 29.85 square kilometre of vegetation or free space, which was around 52.48 sq km in 1995. On the other hand, wetland areas have decreased significantly to stand at only 4.28 sq km compared to 30.24 sq km in 1995.

We should save the existing greenery in Dhaka city and initiate a campaign to increase it so that we can have a better environment. It is understandable that the number of trees in this city is not enough to produce a healthy environment. Lack of trees increases the temperature and makes a place difficult for living. It is time we prevented further deforestation and planted new trees so that we could lead a healthy life and reverse the damage we have done so far to our environment.

Sirazi Shahjahan,

Malibagh, Dhaka,

mshaju001@gmail.com