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Bdnews24.com The government is set to formulate a national forest policy and update forest law for extension and conservation of forestland, Raja Devasish Roy, special assistant to the chief adviser on forest and environment issues, said Friday.
"The government will formulate a national forest policy and modify and amend the existing forest law, as necessitated by the changing times," said Devasish at a press conference held at the secretariat ahead of the Plantation and Tree Fair 2008.
"Different forest institutions also need to be reformed. We'd like to raise certain issues, so they may be carried forward by the future governments," said the special aide.
"Many plantation and tree owners are harassed as they proceed to dispose of their own trees or plantations, which should be looked into by the concerned authorities with a view to checking such harassment of the people."
The three-month long Plantation and Tree Fair, with the theme 'Planting trees to help contain storms, cyclones and tidal surges', will be inaugurated by the chief adviser Saturday.
The fair has set a target of planting 100 crore (one billion) seedlings, which will be undertaken by the forest department, other government and non-government organisations and educational institutions.
A total of 19 crore (190 million) seedlings have been raised so far and kept ready with the forest department and different nurseries for plantation.
About 12,000 hectares of forestland has been planted anew in 2007, of which 4,000 have been freed from the hold of illegal encroachers, with assistance from joint forces, officals said at the press conference. Around 32-40,000 hectares of government forestland is still held by the land grabbers, they said.
The officials also told reporters that another one lakh (100,000) hectares of land will be afforested over five years starting in 2009 at an expense of Tk 650 crore.
The press conference was attended by the environment and forest secretary AHM Rezaul Kabir, chief conservator of forests AKM Shamsuddin, principal forest information officer and other officials.
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