The real test of Bangladesh's 25 crore tree pledge

The gap between planting a seedling and keeping it alive is the real test of the pledge to plant 25 crore (250 million) trees in five years. The Prime Minister formally launched the programme on 13 June at the Malumghat reserved forest in Cox's Bazar. According to the progress report prepared for the implementation cell's fifth meeting on 7 October, the programme planted about 3.57 crore seedlings between 17 February and 15 September: 69 per cent of this year's target of 5.15 crore.

Guidance to keep those seedlings alive already exists. In June 2025, the Forest Department updated its 161-page Nursery and Plantation Manual. It explains which tree suits which soil, how big a pit should be, how much fertiliser to use and when to weed. But the department wrote it for its field staff, and people planting seedlings in courtyards or school fields have rarely seen it.

Yet much of the programme is in ordinary hands. Under the "One Tree One Child" initiative alone, the education divisions' five-year targets total 13.34 crore seedlings, more than half the national goal. Children will plant them; parents and teachers will decide whether they survive.

As a member of the advisory pool supporting the programme, I have read the manual cover to cover. This essay draws on it and on experience abroad to set out what citizens should know, how to verify the figures, where the manual needs updating and what could strengthen the programme.

How will we know how many trees survive?

At present, the figures come from agency reports. Of the 3.57 crore, about 3.04 crore came from 11 government offices reporting in a prescribed format every 15 days, and about 53 lakh from other agencies. The cell is planning a tree-monitoring app, a central database and a dashboard; in October, a sub-committee recommended a common data format and a feasibility and cost study. The cell has also asked every ministry to record where it plants, and its chair has said it will not tolerate irregularities. As the system takes shape, six questions will help make the numbers credible:

1. What counts as "planted"? A seedling handed over by a nursery, or one in the ground? The Air Force plans to drop seed balls from helicopters over coastal and hill areas; should seed balls be counted separately?
2. How is double counting avoided? Forest Department nurseries supply schools, local bodies and other agencies. If supplier and planter both report, one seedling may appear twice.
3. What is additional? Counting began on 17 February, before the June launch, and agencies plant every year through social forestry and roadside programmes. Separating routine planting from new effort would strengthen the record.
4. Can each site be found again? A GPS or location record lets anyone return in two years to see what survived.
5. Who checks a sample? Universities or the Bangladesh Forest Research Institute could verify a random sample of sites each year.
6. When will survival be reported? The planting figure is updated fortnightly; a date for the first survival figure would complete the picture.

None of this casts doubt on the effort behind the numbers. Verification turns a reported figure into a result the public can trust.

What other countries have learned

Survival, not planting, is the measure that counts. A 2022 study in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, covering 176 restoration sites across tropical and subtropical Asia, found that on average 18 per cent of planted saplings died in the first year and 44 per cent within five. Results ranged widely: some sites kept over 80 per cent alive. Saplings planted near mature trees had roughly 20 per cent better odds of survival. Only 28 per cent of sites were monitored for five years or more. If this year's 5.15 crore seedlings followed the Asian average, about 93 lakh would die in the first year and some 2.3 crore within five.

Numbers planted can also mislead. In India's Himachal Pradesh, a 2021 Nature Sustainability study used satellite imagery of 430 plantations and found that, on average, decades of planting had not increased forest canopy cover and had shifted forests away from broadleaf species local people valued.

Verification can be built in from the start. Pakistan asked a consortium led by IUCN, with FAO and WWF-Pakistan, to provide independent third-party monitoring of its Ten Billion Tree Tsunami programme.

Ownership may count for most. After Nepal handed forests to community groups in 1993, forest cover rose from 26 per cent in 1992 to 45 per cent in 2016; over 22,000 groups now manage about a third of the country's forests. Bangladesh's social forestry, which shares timber income with participants, is a homegrown model worth extending to schools and homesteads.

Right tree, right place

Before planting, decide why. Greening and forestry are different. On a city street, a tree's job is shade and cooling; in a homestead, fruit, timber, fuel and income; on the coast, a shield against storms and surges; in forest restoration, a mix of native species for biodiversity. Whatever the purpose, a surviving tree stores carbon, holds soil and water, and shelters birds. A dead seedling does none of these.

The manual's central lesson fits in one line: a seedling in the wrong place will not survive, however well it is cared for. Jackfruit must never go where water stands in the monsoon. A tall tree under a power line will be cut down within years. Wherever possible, choose native species suited to the area.

One rule is missing from the manual: on 15 May 2025, the environment ministry banned raising, planting and selling eucalyptus and acacia (akashmoni) seedlings. If a market stall or nursery offers them, do not buy.

From the manual's own lists:

Where	Suitable trees	Watch out
South side of a house	Lemon, guava, amloki, sajna, pomegranate, kul	Small trees, so light reaches the house
North and northwest of a house	Bamboo, jam, gamar, koroi	Large trees belong here
High ground that never floods	Jackfruit, lychee, bel, jambura	These die in standing water
Low or waterlogged land	Kadam, hijal, mandar, pitali, babla	Never jackfruit
Pond banks	Coconut, betel nut, palmyra, date palm, arjun, hijal	Avoid trees whose falling leaves foul the water
Edges of crop fields	Date palm, betel nut, babla, bokain	Avoid heavy shade
Village roads	Neem, jarul, arjun, amloki, palmyra, date palm	No tall trees under power lines
Flood embankments	Lower slope: shil koroi, shimul, kadam, neem; upper slope: grass, dhaincha, arhar	No trees on the crest; unpicked fruit draws rats that damage embankments
City footpaths	Sonalu, mini jarul, kanchan, tagar, shefali	Under wires, nothing taller than 10 to 15 feet
Road dividers	Sonalu, mini jarul, kamini, kanchan, tagar	Nothing taller than 8 to 10 feet
Rooftops	Dwarf mango, guava, lemon, pomegranate, tulsi	Avoid deep-rooted trees
Haors and wetlands	Hijal, koroch, tamal, barun	Water-tolerant trees only
New coastal chars	Keora, baen, golpata	On sandy soil, jhau and babla

Six rules for planting

1. Timing: The monsoon, from mid-June to mid-October, is best. Plant at other times only if you can water regularly. Mangroves go in from August to September, or December to January; this winter, the programme plans to plant 2 crore mangrove seedlings.
2. Seedling: Choose a healthy, sturdy one; bigger seedlings survive better. For homesteads, the manual recommends seedlings at least two metres tall, beyond the reach of goats and cattle.
3. Pit: Generally 30 centimetres (one foot) wide and deep; 45 centimetres for homesteads. Dig it two to three weeks ahead and keep topsoil and subsoil apart. Where water collects, plant on a 20 to 30 centimetre mound.
4. Fertiliser: At least 15 days before planting, mix one kilogram of well-rotted cow dung, 25 grams of TSP and 25 grams of MoP into each pit. Never use fresh dung. Three weeks after planting, apply 25 grams of urea in a ring 20 centimetres from the stem.
5. Planting: Remove and dispose of the polythene bag; it pollutes. Jute bags can stay. Set the seedling at the depth it grew in the nursery, refill with topsoil first and press firmly.
6. Stake and water: Tie the seedling to a stake with jute twine, and water if it does not rain.

Keep two metres between timber trees and more for fruit trees. These are general rules that vary by species, soil and site. For pests or disease, consult an agriculture or forest officer before spraying anything.

Planting takes a day; survival takes three years

The manual expects up to 20 per cent of seedlings in a forest plantation to die in the first year. It says dead seedlings must be replaced in July to August and October to November of that year, and by May to June of the next. For this monsoon's plantings, that means now. With the dry season starting, now is also the time to mulch.

• Fence: a bamboo cage about 1.5 metres high; in cities, a reusable iron guard.
• Weed: keep 30 centimetres around the stem clear; three times in year one, twice in year two, once in year three.
• Mulch: cover the base with water hyacinth, leaves or grass to hold moisture.
• Water: in the dry season, in the morning or evening, without letting water pool.
• Prune: timber trees only, from the second year, between December and March, removing just the lower third of branches. Do not prune fruit trees beyond dead wood.
• Fire: in Falgun to Boishakh, never burn rubbish near young trees.

Where the manual needs updating

As the manual reaches schools and households, its advice becomes public guidance, so a few sections deserve prompt revision.

Pesticide guidance has fallen behind the law. Page 85 rightly lists dieldrin, aldrin, heptachlor, chlordane, lindane and DDT as never to be used in nurseries; Bangladesh has banned the first four as "dirty dozen" pollutants. Yet earlier text still recommends them on pages 37, 87, 88, 103, 105 and 149. Furadan (carbofuran) appears on pages 90, 99 and 149, although Bangladesh banned it in January 2023. Dursban (chlorpyrifos) is listed as approved, even though Stockholm Convention parties agreed in May 2025 to list it for global elimination. Bangladesh's own experience shows the value of acting: a 2018 study in the International Journal of Epidemiology linked the 2000 ban on the most toxic pesticides to large falls in poisoning deaths, with no apparent loss of farm output.

Species lists predate the ban and include invasive trees. The manual does not yet mention the eucalyptus and acacia ban, and page 89 still covers eucalyptus nursery pests. It recommends ipil-ipil, a widely invasive tree, for roadsides. Its "stand improvement" model, meant to replace invasive species with native ones, lists exotic mahogany. And sissoo, which page 126 advises avoiding because of dieback, still appears in the models on pages 128 to 141.

Nursery planning needs a bigger buffer. The planning formula on page 54 allows 10 per cent for replacing dead seedlings, while page 147 expects up to 20 per cent first-year mortality. At roughly 5 crore seedlings a year, nurseries could fall short by up to 50 lakh replacement seedlings.

A careful edit would also fix smaller slips: 98 plus 341 nurseries totalled as "413"; two site-quality classes both labelled "good"; cortisol described as a plant hormone; a fertiliser ratio printed as 2:141; differing thinning schedules; and unsourced Miyawaki carbon claims.

What could strengthen the programme?

Before the next monsoon:

• A one-page errata with every copy, withdrawing banned pesticide recommendations and stating the eucalyptus and acacia ban.
• A nursery replacement allowance of at least 20 per cent.
• A survival protocol: a location record for every planting, survival counts at one, two and three years, independent sample checks, a survival target, and planting and survival reported separately by district, upazila and institution.
• A clear definition of "planted", separating programme plantings from routine ones.

In the full revision:

• A pest chapter built with the Department of Agricultural Extension around integrated pest management, with soil and species chapters checked by the Soil Resource Development Institute and the Bangladesh Forest Research Institute.
• A species appendix: banned and invasive trees, native priorities by agro-ecological zone, drought-, salt- and flood-tolerant options, and a cap on any single species per block.
• Chapters for schools and for agencies such as LGED, Roads and Highways, and the Water Development Board.
• Measurable seedling standards, registration of private nurseries and a shift from polythene bags to jute or coir pots and root trainers.
• Dry-season watering guidance.
• A named caretaker and a three-year maintenance budget for every planting.
• Urban standards, including heat-reducing species, and protection for existing trees during construction; felling one mature tree for two saplings does not balance the books.
• A simple carbon accounting method linking surviving trees to national climate commitments and climate finance.
• Free online publication, a four-page Bangla citizens' guide, upazila species posters at nurseries and a channel for reporting irregularities.

What the rest of us can do

Buy seedlings from the Forest Department or other reliable nurseries, and refuse eucalyptus and acacia. Take responsibility for one tree for three years: fence it, weed it, water it, replace it if it dies and photograph it each year. Schools, mosques, temples and offices can plant spare land, with a committee in charge. Where space is scarce, the Miyawaki method packs three to four native seedlings into each square metre, though it requires digging and enriching the soil a metre deep. Give seedlings as gifts. Companies can adopt nearby roads and budget for care, not just saplings. Do not nail signboards to trees or let goats loose near seedlings, and report fake plantings to the forest office or upazila administration.

Divide 25 crore trees among more than 20 crore people, and it comes to less than one and a half trees each. The question is whether, in 2031, we will be able to walk past most of them. A manual in a cupboard saves no seedlings; an updated one in every school, mosque and union parishad, plus a counting system people trust, could turn the programme into a social movement and save crores of trees.

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Subail Bin Alam is an engineer-economist. He is Chief Operating Officer of Rancon Infrastructures and Engineering Limited, a Director of the Bangladesh Sustainable and Renewable Energy Association, a guest faculty of ULAB, a Trustee of the Panam Institute and a founding member of the Centre for Science, Technology and Policy Diplomacy. He can be reached at [email protected].

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