RAJSHAHI UNIVERSITY, Feb 07: Rajshahi University is the second-largest university of the country with 750 acres of land. The authorities of the university for the first time conducted a tree census in the whole area of the campus.
The census reveals currently there are 30,191 trees on the campus. The census was conducted by the Agricultural Project of the university. For the census, the researchers divided the whole campus into nine units. The team collected data, measured and catalogued trees from May 03 to May 14 last year.
ProVice-chancellor and also the President of Advisory committee of Agricultural Project of the university Prof Dr Ananda Kumar Saha supervised the whole process.
Mahogany is the most common tree species on the campus with a total of 10,325 trees followed by mango and coconut trees with 3,415 and 1,023 respectively.
The university authorities have recently taken a massive greening drive on the campus. The '50 years' master plan' of the university, formulated last year, committed to turning the campus into an eco-friendly one.
The master plan proposes plantation of four categories of trees: trees having timber value, fruit, medicinal and flower trees. Following the policy, the university authorities have cultivated several fruits and mango orchards, medicinal and flower gardens.
Emphasizing the importance of tree census Prof Dr Sabrina Naz of Botany department of the university said, "The tree census is crucial to ensure proper maintenance of trees. Every year a large number of trees are planted in the tree planting seasons. The whole effort goes in vain if the plants don't survive. Statistics of the number of trees helps us taking care of the existing and the newly planted trees."
"Every locality should have a minimum of 25 per cent of greenery of its total area to be livable. The greenery on RU campus is well above this minimum requirement. Our campus has more greenery than many localities and university campuses of the country", she added.
