[Catholic] Church Plants Trees to Make Bangladesh Greener

UCA News ^ | 3/2/21 | Stephan Uttom

[marshmallow]

The Catholic Church and its social service agency Caritas in Bangladesh are stepping up a massive nationwide tree plantation campaign with an aim to make the country greener and safer amid threats of climate change impacts.

Since last year, they have jointly planted about 400,000 saplings of various species of fruit trees. A total of 700,000 trees will be planted by the end of the year.

The campaign is inspired by three significant events — the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical Laudato Si', the golden jubilee of Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, and the birth centenary of the nation’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The campaign was launched on Aug. 14 last year when Catholic bishops led by Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario of Dhaka planted trees on the premises of the secretariat of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh (CBCB) in the nation’s capital Dhaka.

Caritas officials said its central and regional offices have planted or distributed 218,978 saplings in 118 subdistricts in 46 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh.

Poresh Paul, 35, a Hindu from Dinajpur district, said he had planted five mango saplings provided by Caritas regional office.

“I want to plant more trees ahead of the rainy session,” he told UCA News.

While trees are essential for a better environment, they can also yield financial dividends, Paul said.

“If I can plant more trees like mango, litchi, blackberry, coconut, palm, tamarind and mahogany, these will make me financially self-sufficient as well as protect the environment,” he added.

Ranjan Francis Rozario, executive director of Caritas Bangladesh, said they are not only distributing and planting trees but also making people more aware of the need to protect the earth.

[Parmy]

That sounds like a lot of planting. But, here in Washington State, the average new planting of an apple orchard will have between 800 to 1200 trees per acre. That means that a small planting of 100 acres will have, depending on the owners desire, at least 80,000 to 120,000 apple trees.

If you multiply all of that by the thousands of acres planted you, with a little math application, can see that it's not that hard to reach 700,000 or even a million trees.

At a thousand tress per acre 700,000 is only 700 acres, a relatively small orchard operation.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This should be very carefully planned, or the results could be a terrible disaster.

Bangladesh is a river delta country. Annual flooding makes the soil very rich with nutrients. “If you stick your bare foot it the ground, you will grow more toes.” But because neighboring countries fear it becoming a breadbasket for the region, they pay them a big subsidy to only grow the fairly worthless fiber called Jute.

However, if you try and interfere with the flooding in the wrong way you will have very bad outcomes.

[hinckley buzzard]

In addition, “river delta country” is subsiding land. Deltas sink because that’s what they do, not because of “climate change” or “sea level rise.” These trees wil most likely be drowned in brackish sea water before they bear much fruit.