Experts at a meeting in Rajshahi on Sunday said introduction of bio-agriculture system with sustainable land management (SLM) can be the vital means of checking the gradually rising land degradation in the country’s Barind area.
“Management of both underground as well as surface water and checking of environment are also crucial to stop the land degradation,” said Dr Sohrab Ali, director of department of Environment (DoE), while presiding over a daylong workshop.
‘Establishing National Land Use and Land Degradation Profile towards Mainstreaming SLM Practices in Sector Policies’, a project of the DoE, hosted the regional workshop styled “Land Degradation, Land Use and Sustainable Land Management of Barind Region” at the conference hall of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA).
BMDA Chairman Dr Akram Hossain Chowdhury and its Executive Director Engineer Abdur Rashid addressed the workshop as the chief and special guests respectively while DoE Director and also Director of the project Dr Sohrab Ali was in the chair.
Professor Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan from Department of Geology and Mining in Rajshahi University, Coordinator of the project Dr Jalal Uddin Soaib, Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension Shamsul Haque and Chief Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute Dr Aminul Islam also spoke disseminating their expertise.
In the technical session, BMDA Deputy Manager Rafiqul Islam, Senior Scientific Officer of Soil Resource Development Institution Dr Nurul Islam and Shahidul Islam from Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services presented three research papers on the issues of SLM best practices, land degradation processes, indicators and drivers and land use of Barind region.
Dr Akram Chowdhury laid importance on sustainable land management for maintaining ecological balance, which eventually will help ensure food security. Land is a very important component of environment and land degradation is now being considered as a serious threat to sustainable development and food security of the county.
Dr Shohrab Ali said the project has been designed to secure healthy environment for the benefit of present and future generation.
Productivity of land is declining largely because of inappropriate agricultural practices, he added.
