Dialogue About Deforestation

Two friends discuss trees cut down on their road, soil erosion and why saplings do not survive.

A dialogue between Bipul and Sohel

Bipul: Sohel, do you remember the row of trees along the road to our school?

Sohel: The rain trees? They were cut down in the spring for the road widening.

Bipul: The whole road is unbearable now. There is no shade anywhere along it.

Sohel: And that is a small example. Forest cover across the country has fallen a great deal in fifty years.

Bipul: Why is it happening? Surely everyone knows trees are needed.

Sohel: Knowing is not the difficulty. Land is wanted for housing, for farming, for roads — and a tree pays nobody rent.

Bipul: What do we actually lose besides shade?

Sohel: The soil, first. Roots hold a slope together; without them a hillside washes away in a heavy monsoon.

Bipul: That explains the landslides in the hill districts.

Sohel: Largely, yes. And there is the temperature — a street with trees is measurably cooler than one without.

Bipul: Is replanting not being done?

Sohel: A great deal is planted. The trouble is survival — nobody waters the saplings after the first week.

Bipul: So the ceremony matters more than the tree.

Sohel: Too often. If our school plants any this year, let us ask to be the ones responsible for watering them.