Environment-friendly practices interest Rajshahi villagers

Many of the grassroots people have become interested towards environment-friendly best practices to protect the environment from further degradation in Rajshahi region, including its vast Barind tract.

More than 3,000 villagers are seen engaged in good aquaculture practices, while 40 others transplanted 300 palm trees so far to protect them from thunderbolts and above 150 herbal plants in homestead to meet up their family needs.

The role of the palm tree is very important to reduce the rate of lightning that claims the lives of both people and domestic animals every year.

The promotional development activities are seen being implemented with the intervention of the Sustainable Enterprise Project (SEP) in three upazilas of Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj districts.

These were revealed in a post-rally discussion hosted by Ashrai, a non-government development organization, at its learning centre at Baya under Paba upazila in the district in observance of World Environment Day 2023 on Monday.

Under the #BeatPlasticPollution campaign, the theme of World Environment Day-2023 is “Ecosystem Restoration”. The villagers consisting of teachers, students, businessmen, officers and employees formed eight environment clubs and motivated community people towards promoting environment-friendly activities.

Around 300 of the members were imparted training on good aquaculture practices for environmental certification, while 150 others were given training on feeding technique and safe input uses and 75 on post-harvest management for product certification.

Ashrai has been implementing the three-year project financially supported by the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) and the World Bank.

Microfinance Director Muhammad Kamruzzaman, SEP Manager Anwar Hossain, Technical Officer Saad Ahmad, Environment Officer Mohammad Arafat Islam, Documentation Officer Syed Tanvir Islam and Finance and Procurement Officer Kaiser Ahmed spoke on the occasion.

The meeting was told that 70 club members cultivate seasonal vegetables on fellow lands of around 60 pond-embankments through adopting recycling waste management, while 160 others adopt climate resilience technology and twenty others use renewable energy.

Syed Tanvir Islam said four of the club members are growing Malabar spinach (pui shak) on the pond embankment and using those as a meal for their rearing fishes in the respective pond maintaining the food-centric natural ecosystem in the fish farming ponds.

In the process, fish are getting organic food contributing to reducing the water pollution caused by using chemical fertilisers.

Various modern and climate resilient fish farming technologies, including river pen, bottom clean, cage, river basin and climate tolerant vegetable cultivation on the banks of ponds, are being promoted to restore the pond ecosystem as conventional fish farming is facing troubles due to the adverse impact of climate change.

Tanvir Islam said they are promoting climate-resilient technologies in fish farming by launching modern technologies to produce safe food and reduce production costs.