Forests provide fundamental services to our societies and a better understanding of them is necessary to ensure their sustainable management. The information needed in this process requires collecting it from multiple sources and then managing and analyzing it to provide timely results to decision makers. New technologies are available to provide suitable solutions for efficient, reliable and accurate data storage and management, which prevents data loss and is more time efficient than traditional paper-based methods. Web based platforms in particular have proven to be user-friendly and flexible tools that save time and effort.
The Bangladesh Forest Information System (BFIS) is a platform developed by the Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) with technical support from FAO and financial support from UN-REDD programme and USAID. The BFIS stores, organizes, and disseminates forestry related information and is the first of its kind in Bangladesh. The whole system is hosted in the National Data Center of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) and managed by the BFD.
The BFIS was designed to meet the requirements identified by relevant stakeholders and has achieved a considerable level of acceptance of among them. The BFIS will help BFD officials to connect and access centralized information from different locations and collaborate more efficiently. Other users such as researchers, academics, and the public can also benefit from this platform to extract data to better understand forestry related information in Bangladesh. The types of forest information available in the BFIS include forest inventory data, spatial data, reports, publications, and other documents. Multiple modules are organized in four categories to easily access the information - Development Activities, Management and Conservation, Forest Assessment and Knowledge Management. Users can select the desired module with just a click and the system will redirect to that module site for further details. For example, the GeoPortal system manages, maintains and shares geo-spatial information.
BFIS was launched on 18th December of 2018 at Bangladesh Forest Department in the presence of Dr. Md. Billal Hossain, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change as chief guest; Mr. Robert D Simpson, FAO Country Representative of Bangladesh. The program was chaired by Mr. Mohammed Shafiul Alam Chowdhury, Chief Conservator of Forests, BFD. Dr. Mariam Akhter, Assistant Conservator of Forests of BFD, presented the BFIS contents and its functions. Dr Matieu Henry highlighted the importance of Forest Information System. Engr. Tarique M Barkatullah, Director Operations and Security of the National Data Center, Bangladesh Computer Council, appreciated the cooperation among all ministries, departments and agencies to make the BFIS successful. Over 120 participants from BFD, other government and non-government agencies, academic institutes and research organizations attended the launching event.
Further enhancements are expected in the future to make the BFIS even more useful as the needs of stakeholders evolve and the BCC will continue providing the required technical support. The BFIS is a step towards becoming a Digital Bangladesh digital that supports sustainable forest management and conservation.