Collaborative management of the ‘protected’ forests of Bangladesh (original) (raw)
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International Forestry Review, 2009
With the history and experiences of more than one hundred years in formulation and revisions since the British colonial period, the forest policy of Bangladesh has turned away from a traditional production premises towards protection. Establishing protected areas for biodiversity conservation dates back to the1960s. The strategy gained impetus with the passage of national legislation in 1973 that included the provision of declaring forests as national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and game reserves for the protection of the natural forest resources. Due to the absence of a clear demarcation between core areas and buffer zones and the absence of concern for the sustention of local communities' usufruct rights, degradation continued in the protected areas. Therefore, an alternative strategy of co-management involving local stakeholders and provision of incentives in terms of Alternative Income Generation (AIG) supports has been introduced by the government under a donor assisted project. This new policy is being implemented in ive pilot sites. This co-management strategy has demonstrated positive impacts and, increasingly, is gaining recognition as appropriate for other protected areas. This paper reviews the evolutionary history of and periodical changes in the forest policy of Bangladesh -highlighting the conservation aspects, the development of protected areas and the gradual adoption of their collaborative management.
Community forest management addressing social vulnerability of forest communities in Bangladesh
International Forestry Review, 2013
Focusing on people oriented forest policy initiatives, this paper intends to understand whether and to what extent these initiatives can address the social vulnerability of forest communities in Bangladesh. This paper found that despite the potential of community forest management, the community based policy initiatives in Bangladesh fail to address the dynamic relationships among the formal and informal institutions that largely shape the rights and access of forest communities to forest resources. These policies ignored the social construction process that generated inequality and marginalisation in gaining access to forest resources. This paper argues that various forms of institutional arrangements and their relationships are of central importance in determining which social actors gain access to and control over their local natural resources. This, in turn, contributes to the forest communities' limited ability to ensure their livelihoods, their basic needs and their capacity to cope with adverse events such as climate induced hazards.
Participatory Forest Management in Bangladesh
1999
With the Pace of Population booming, increased energy consumption, over exploitation of the natural resources and rapid depletion of the forest reserves accelerated natural disaster like flood, drought and cyclones in Bangladesh. Once Bangladesh was famous for its evergreen/ semi evergreen tropical and world famous mangrove forest. But over the years due to over exploitation of forests and its non-participatory management, more than 50% of the forest resources has been depleted. Realising the grim effect of destruction of forests and to repair the lapidated environmental condition, both the government and nongovernment organization have taken up afforestation programme. The NGOs have added a new dimension in the forest management, which has ensured participation of the community people and protection of the vegetation. Although, the government has also adopted participatory forest management but due to bureaucratic attitude easy access of the poor habitants are restricted in many ca...
Communities in conservation: protected area management and enhanced conservation in Bangladesh
In the last few decades, the natural resource base of most developing countries has decreased alarmingly because of enormous population pressure and extreme poverty. Bangladesh is no exception, having lost most of its forest in the last 30 years. The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has adopted various approaches to conserve the country's remaining biodiversity, including protected areas (PAs). However, the creation of PAs alone has not produced positive conservation results as expected, due to a purely ecological focus that excluded the needs of local forest-dependent people. The introduction of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) for nature conservation in PAs is relatively new for Bangladesh compared to other South Asian countries, but it seems to have effected significant changes. The GoB recently adopted CBNRM in five of its PAs as part of a pilot programme in collaborative management. This paper is a case study of the changing trends in PA management, people's livelihoods and attitudes in and around one of these pilot sites. We observed that some changes have already taken place in forest resource collection patterns and in the attitudes of people in the locality. People's income sources and dependency on protected forests have also noticeably shifted away from forest areas in the 144 Communities in conservation: protected area management and enhanced conservation in Bangladesh last year. Although gradual, people's participation seems to be changing the direction of future forest conservation in Bangladesh. We conclude that bringing a larger number of people under various income-generating schemes, clearly defining the rights and responsibilities of the local people in PAs and ensuring more effective governance should be the next steps for the future of participatory management in the country.
POLITICS OF INCLUSION AND ECOLOGICAL MODERNIZATION: INSIGHTS INTO THE UN-REED+ PROGRAM OF BANGLADESH
IJMT, 2019
In 2007 during the thirteenth conference of the parties (COP-13) at Bali, global players are finally adopted ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (plus) conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks’ (REDD+) as global policy for protecting world forest and as an early device for reducing- global warming after the failure of reaching to a negotiating point on how to tackle forest degradation globally in 1992 at Rio. It is the first attempt at a global level, which put emphasizes on rewarding local people/forest depended on people/Indigenous people for maintaining and enhancing forest carbon stocks and sinks through Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of forest-dependent people. The government of Bangladesh launches the UN REDD+ Bangladesh National Program officially in August 2016 with a stand that this bottom-up approach induces changes in behavior among Indigenous Peoples (IPs), forest-dependent communities and local governments by building mutual respect and confidence, which help to protect and preserve the forest carbon stocks and sinks of Bangladesh. Since this program deploys recently in Bangladesh, this paper is limited only in examining the REDD+ policy document and other preparatory reports and reviewing selected research reports rather than experiencing with the implementation sites. In this paper, I try to reveal the level of inclusion of indigenous people in the REDD+ formulation process and the engagement in the new nature of forest governance as REDD+ has been understood as a governance process characterized (inclusive efforts) by diverse sources of power and authority and by a multiplicity of actors, interests, and activities which all influence each other and may or may not agree with their vision and strategies of forest governance (Corbera and Schroeder, 2011).
Proceedings of the international conference ‘The Future of Forests in Asia and the Pacific: Outlook for 2020’, 2009
Communities in conservation: protected area management and enhanced conservation in Bangladesh last year. Although gradual, people's participation seems to be changing the direction of future forest conservation in Bangladesh. We conclude that bringing a larger number of people under various income-generating schemes, clearly defining the rights and responsibilities of the local people in PAs and ensuring more effective governance should be the next steps for the future of participatory management in the country.
Journal of Forestry Research, 2013
Establishment of Protected Areas (PAs), in the face of rapid deforestation, forest degradation and climate change has been one of the key efforts in conservation of biodiversity worldwide in recent times. While Bangladesh has gained a degree of prominence in the world for its successful social forestry programs, the concept of collaborative protected area management is rather new in the country, initiated in 2004 by the Bangladesh Forest Department in five PAs with financial assistance from USAID. Based on empirical evidence from three of the pilot PAs, we examined the achievements and associated challenges and prospects for co-management. Our fieldwork revealed a number of challenges faced by co-management institutions: (1) institutions were dominated by the elite group, overshadowing the voice of the community people; (2) mutual trust and collective performance are key to good governance but had not taken root in the PAs; (3) encroachment onto forest land and subsequent conversion to agriculture remained a serious problem that discouraged forest-dependent people from participating actively in co-management initiatives; (4) legal provisions (including acts, rules and policies) were not clearly and adequately disseminated and understood at the community level; (5) there remained a degree of ambiguity regarding