The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry came up with the recommendation at its 4th meeting, held with its chairman Saber Hossain Chowdhury in the chair.

The reserved forest land is 641,308.31 acres in the three CHT districts – Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban, according to statistics placed at the meeting.

The parliamentary watchdog asked for taking measures initially for small-scale tree plantation as the forest land has sharply declined in the CHT region, said a Parliament Secretariat handout.

Besides, the committee recommended taking assessment projects under Climate Trust Fund to assess the damages caused by climate change and work out ways to address the problem in the country.

The parliamentary body also suggested increasing the manpower of the enforcement wing of Environment Department by August 2019.

The committee recommended the ministry to sit at an emergency meeting with the authorities of Dhaka North City Corporation to address the environmental damages caused by unplanned dumping of wastes at Aminbazar. 

Committee members, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Md Shahab Uddin, Deputy Minister Habibun Nahar, Dipankar Talukder, Nazim Uddin Ahmed, Jafar Alam, Md Rezaul Karim Bablu and Khodeza Nasreen Akhter attended the meeting.