Kawkhali’s remarkable green revolution
A trader brings in a mechanised boat full of saplings to the weekly haat (market).
As the torrential monsoon rain nearly paralyzed life in the villages of Kawkhali, 225 km south of the capital, an extraordinary activity among the villagers could never be ignored. Almost every one of the 14,000 or so households, poor or rich, had a ritual to perform. It is to plant saplings of either timber or fruit trees on any elevated open space, safe from the high tides.
By the time the monsoon is over, according to Forestry officials, in the 79.64 square kilometers of Kawkhali (a township under the Pirojpur district) alone, more than five million trees would have been planted. This ritual has been happening for generations and many believe nowhere in the world does this practice have a match. Planting trees during the rainy season in the region is so intense that all the villages in Pirojpur, about 1,307.06 square kilometers, resemble patches of forests inhabited by humans. The incredibly green area, crisscrossed by hundreds of canals and rivers, is the last boundary for the sweet water descending from the Himalayas and other sources on to the rising salt water of the Bay of Bengal, about 50 kilometers downstream.
There are villagers who each plant several thousands of these saplings every other monsoon. Some have even converted paddy fields into tree plantation grounds.
The drive to plant more trees here comes from the simple factor of economics. The land is moist and extremely fertile round the year and for a sapling (timber) costing about Tk. 20 (US $ 0. 25 cents) to grow to a value of Tk. 2000 (US $ 25), takes around three years or less. Many of these growers do not touch some of the selected trees for up to 15 or 20 years to save for medical emergencies, marriages or education of their children. For them the trees are ready cash.
In addition, the fruit trees grow phenomenally fast in this incredibly fertile land. Traders from Dhaka travel around the villages during the harvesting of fruits, particularly coconuts, beetle nuts and aamra (Spondias Pinnata), and buy the gardens. During harvest, farmers and villagers are too happy to sell their fruits without any hassle. The buyers do the harvesting, packaging and transportation to the capital while growers simply count the cash. A harvest tree full of aamra is sold for as much as Tk. 2500 (US $ 30). On the Dhaka street the same fruit is sold for Tk 5 (US $ 0.06 or 6 cents) each.
A merchant selling saplings in the weekly haat.
The whole process of this silent green revolution in Kawkhali stems from across the Kacha river at the Hindu village of Kumar Para, the village of the potters. This is where the potters make millions of tiny round shaped earthen pots for seeds to germinate in and grow to a healthy length for sale in the weekly markets of different villages. The growers buy each hundred pots for Tk. 60 (US $ 0. 75 cents).
At every village of the area there are specialized lumberjacks, who buy the trees and transport them on the canals and rivers to trading centers in Nesarabad or Inderhat – a day’s voyage.
Once the mature trees are felled, the branches of the trees are sold as fuel-wood while the heavy timber gets dragged to the landing site for transportation to the trading center. The most interesting part comes when a particularly heavy tree has been felled and it has to be dragged to the canal for loading into a boat. Young men use the most innovative method to complete this drag. Among them a cheerleader shouts the most vulgar words in amazing rhyme and rhythm to which the young men respond in unison and drag the weight altogether. For instance, the cheerleader opens up with a question, “Is there a good harlot among us who can hear our voice?” The answer comes in chorus, “NOOO”. Reassured, the cheerleader then goes on to unleash his foulest of words to the immense pleasure of the mud-clad young men dragging the huge log responding to every foul verse with a loud “haioooo”. None seems to feel pain of the hard work.
Many more groups of people are involved in the process of this extraordinary trade.The staggering number of saplings of these trees comes from hundreds of nurseries silently evolving amidst a quiet and pristine countryside, otherwise devoid of employment opportunities. Housewives set up nurseries on the courtyards of their homes. It is estimated that in Kawkhali there are up to 300 such nurseries. And in neighboring Nesarabad , known as the capital of nurseries, there are 1500 registered nurseries providing millions of trees to the entire region. Nesarabad also has a timber market, one of the largest in the country, supplying timber throughout the country.
Mechanised boats such as the one shown in the picture bring in saplings and other goods to the haat every week.
Dibangkar Roy, the Forestry official in charge of Kawkhali and neighboring Nesarabad Upazilas has served in the forestry department around the country for over ten years. He says he has never seen anywhere in the country so much of enthusiasm among the general public to plant trees.
“If you go a few kilometers from here to Nesarabad (Swarupkathi) you will see mega nurseries some of which are national award winners for their contributions to the environment,” says Roy. “Under the social forestation program run by our department, we are planting 25,000 saplings by the roadsides this year in partnership with the villagers.”
The agrarian character of the region is especially evident during the weekly haats (weekly markets on Mondays and Fridays) in Kawkhali, which attract some of the richest harvests for trading. Thousands converge from the surrounding villages mainly on boats and or by road for business. Free range fowls, Paan, beetle nuts (suparis), coconuts, aamra, Jambura, and during the rainy season, huge supply of saplings of different kinds of trees keep arriving at regular intervals by mechanized boats.
Story and Photos by Morshed Ali Khan
Short URL: https://reportsbd.com/?p=504
Posted by Reportsbd
on Aug 6 2015. Filed under Home Slide, National.
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