Green Grass Protects the Environment

Prof. M Zahidul Haque

Prof. M Zahidul Haque

According to a Biblical allusion to Isaiah: 40-“All flesh is grass”. This phrase establishes a relationship between flesh (soft muscular tissues of humans and animals) and grass or plant. Grasses are abundantly available on earth. They are essential sources of food (rice, corn, etc.) for humans and animals. Grasses provide nutrition to both humans and animals. Grasses also contribute significantly to environmental protection and conservation.

Like all other plants, green grasses take carbon dioxide from the air and produces oxygen for humans and animals to breath. Through natural process of transpiration green grasses keep environment cool. They reduce both daytime and nighttime temperatures thereby establish balance between heat loss and heat gain. They help soil nitrification making nitrate ions available for plants to uptake.

Green grasses have aesthetic values too: it increases the beauty of lawn and vast land. They protect soil from leaching and retain soil moisture. Walking barefoot on green grass is good for health because this ensures human body to come in close contact to earth and fixes electricity of human body.

Unfortunately in Bangladesh, particularly in big cities, grasslands are diminishing because of irrational conversion of agricultural lands into industrial/housing plots. One can hardly find open land surface with green grasses in city areas. Most building does not have even a small piece of land covered with green grass and small garden plants. However the urban agriculture department has taken an initiative to build roof gardens with green grass.

Green grasses have great environmental benefits and therefore initiatives should be intensified to raising green grasslands.

(The writer recently retired as Professor and was also a former Dean of Faculty of Agriculture at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka.)