Staff Correspondent

Policy planners on Monday said Bangladesh, among the least developed countries, would be the worst suffer of global environment degradation and rise in the sea level.

The government has to pay due importance to environmental issues and take infrastructural development plans to face the challenges, they said at a seminar organised on the occasion of Commonwealth Day.

Special assistance to the chief adviser for environment and forest, Raja Devasish Roy, was present as chief guest at the discussion organised by the forest and environment ministry.

The theme of the day this year is ‘Environment: Our Future’. Foreign secretary Mohammad Touhid Hossain, Federation of Environment Journalists Association of Bangladesh president Quamrul Islam Chowdhury and environment department director general Khandaker Rashedul Huque also addressed the meeting with environment secretary AHM Rezaul Kabir in the chair.

Speaking on the occasion, Devasish mentioned factors like hill cutting, unabated dumping of effluents in rivers, including Buriganga, and increasing sound and air pollution in cities that created negative impact on the environment as well as on the national life.

‘Bangladesh cannot afford the setback and wait for what will happen as an adverse impact of environmental degradation,’ he said, adding ‘We should take up plans and efforts although the results may be visible in several years.’

The special assistant said the water of dying Buriganga might not be cleaned in a year but efforts could start now for reviving it by controlling waste dumping and setting up affluent treatment plants in the industries that now dumped waste into the river.

He acknowledged that there were some legal and technical problems regarding total checking of sound pollution, air pollution and issues like the use of polythene bags, but assured that measures were being taken to make effective laws.

Devasish said more drives thorough mobile courts would be carried out against the pollution. He also sought support of the media in these regards. About global aspect, he said, ‘The ice has started melting and the sea has started swelling.

Bangladesh has to be the worst suffer among the Commonwealth countries due to its effect.’ The foreign secretary blamed the developed countries for causing more harm to the global environment and stressed mobilisation of resources and acquiring of appropriate modern technology by the least developed countries like Bangladesh to facilitate its development. &nbspm ; Quamrul Islam said as a nation Bangladesh had failed to carry out its responsibility to maintain the country’s environment.

There is no alternative to sustainable development for saving human and material resources of the country, he said and stressed the need for taking development plans keeping environment issues in mind.

The environment secretary stressed the need for the involvement of the mass people in ensuring environmentally-friendly and sustainable development of the country. Leading environmentalists from the government and non-government sectors attended the meeting.