Now is the time for all to plant trees. So says a government advertisement in Bengali appearing on The Daily Star of Friday. The Forest Department exhorts readers of the paper to collect their saplings from the Forest establishment nearby and plant the same 'this very day' and be particular about the maintenance of the sapling.

What do such stray advertisements amount to ? The piece is paid for in order that it is responded to. How can this be expected to do that? There must exist more effective means to persuade people to go for planting trees regularly and encouraging others to do so. And they do exist. But these avenues would not be utilised as long the task of growing a 25 per cent forest cover for our land remains exclusively a Forest Department Job — and the whole of the remaining parts of the Juggernaut stands aloof without having any king of Stake in it.

Instead of exhorting the faceless readers of newspapers almost all of whom reside in the space-hungry urban areas and 'most of whom again live in rented flats — the government could do very well by heeding that age-old adage — Charity begins at home.

How many spots of property does our government own or rent in the whole of the country ? Lakhs may be. Can the government not require of those running these places not to leave a square metre of soil ungreeri ? How much khas land still is in direct government ownership ? How many trees have they ?

To get down closer to earth — let us talk of Government schools and colleges. We would urge he government to heed the example set by Mr Mohammad Hanif. who in barely three years of taking over as the Principal of the renowned B M College of Barisal has planted on his campus tens of thousands of trees. In his previous assignment he had worked the same miracle in the Hatem Alt College. Please try to imagine the spacious university campuses of Chittagong and Rajshahl and others being treed' in the same fashion.

People need examples, not exhortations. People go for trendiness. It is for the government and social and political leadership to set a huge trend of planting trees. Advertisements taken out "nt e in a year and that too half-heartedly can only cost the government heavily and buy nothing hr returiL