The Bangladeshi government on Sunday launched a three-month-long countrywide tree plantation campaign to encourage common people to plant more trees to increase the country 's forest land coverage.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina when inaugurating the plantation movement here on Sunday urged all the people to plant at least three saplings to save the nation's environment.

"I'll urge all to plant saplings of at least one medicinal, one fruit and one wood tree," she said.

"It's very much important to plant more and more trees to save the country and people from adverse impact of nature," Hasina said a few days after the country was hit by cyclone Aila which claimed at least 167 people's lives.

The country's State Minister for Environment and Forest Mustafizur Rahman said there is no alternative for us but to go for afforestation for survival in these days of global warming.

It's pivotal to build green belt and have green coverage to fight greenhouse gas emission and further global climate change from which Bangladesh is suffering, he said.

Rahman said the tree plantation programs include holding rallies across the country to create awareness, planting sapling by the PM and releasing newspaper supplement.

He said tree fairs will also be arranged at all six division, 64 district and some 480 sub-district levels across the country following the inauguration.

According to the country's Department of Forest, the government set target to plant more than 670 million saplings of different spices of trees in three fiscal years from ongoing 2008-09 (July 2008-June 2009) to 2010-2011 under the movement throughout the country.

The data of the department showed, the government forest land covers only 15 percent of the country's total area against the minimum requirement of 25 percent for environmental equilibrium in country of 147 million people.