Bangladesh plans to plant 250 million trees in five years; conservationists warn the wrong trees could damage entire ecosystems

Bangladesh is preparing for one of its most ambitious green initiatives yet: a nationwide plan to plant 250 million trees over the next five years. The program is designed to increase the country’s green cover, deliver on a key election promise, and support long-term climate and biodiversity goals. But as conservationists point out, planting such a vast number of trees is not just about quantity. If the wrong species are chosen or planted in the wrong places, the effort could quietly damage entire ecosystems instead of healing them.At the heart of the initiative is a coordinated government push. State minister Shaikh Faridul Islam from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has explained that the plan brings together multiple ministries and state agencies, including agriculture, local government, road transport, education and even the Bangladesh Army, according to Mongabay.Each of these bodies will be given a specific quota of saplings to plant, and the funding will come from their existing annual budgets rather than from a separate, large new fund. In parallel, non-governmental development organizations are being asked to commit to their own planting targe...