Bangladesh Forestry: People’s Participation, Combat Degradation

0318-C1

Anwar Faruque^[1]

Abstract

People’s participation in forestry in Bangladesh started in the 1970s with the settlement of nomadic shifting cultivators in villages. Since then many lessons have been learnt. The traditional foresters in the Bangladesh Forest Department have had to work hard to accommodate this new approach, which was not facilitated by the existing rules and regulations. However, changes have been brought in and a benefit-sharing approach has been successfully implemented. People were doubtful and joined the programme reluctantly at the beginning. Over the last two years, as participants started to get their shares in the harvest, doubt was replaced by an overwhelming sense of encouragement and many people have become enthusiastic about joining participatory forestry programs. The recipients have started to have opinions about forestry management aspects; especially in selecting species for second rotation planting. Bangladesh Forest Department might capitalize upon this enthusiasm to move towards the goal of participatory forest management. If this were to be achieved, it would definitely combat the degradation of forests and enhance the vegetative cover of the country.

Introduction

Bangladesh Forestry owed its inception to the British. The then British government initiated the process of reservation in 19^th century, declared some of the forest areas as reserved and placed them under the Forest Department (FD) for management. Since then those were under the management of FD.

A total of 2.52 million ha, equaling 17.40% of the country’s land area is regarded as ‘forest’. The administrative control of these forests is as under.

• 1.52 million ha, under the direct control of the FD.

• 0.73 million ha as Un-classed State Forests (USF), under the control of the respective district administration and

• 0.27 million ha, privately owned as ‘village forest grooves’.

The major categories of FD controlled forest areas are as follows (Table 1):

Table 1

Nishat and Choudhury 2002

All these lands are legally 'Forest Land' and administered by the FD, under well defined Acts, Rules and Regulations. These ‘forest lands’ do not mean to bear a complete 'forest cover’.

According to the Forestry Master Plan drawn in 1993, the actual forest cover of the country would not exceed 6%. Per capita forestland in Bangladesh has shrunk to a 0.022 ha, one of the lowest in the world. The annual deforestation rate in Bangladesh is 3.3% (Gain 1998) against 0.6% in South Asia.

The major mandate of FD is to generate revenue for the government. Thus FD manages its forestlands under some "set" objectives that though vary slightly from location to location, but in general, are as under.

• To convert the existing natural forests to commercially valuable forests.

• To derive maximum economic benefits from the existing forests.

• To provide a sustained supply of forest products.

• To meet the local demands.

• To prevent denudation and maintain perennial stream flow.

• To cater for wildlife habitat requirements.

With the passage of time the traditional management approach of FD failed to protect and conserve these reserved forests. Except Sundarbans, wherein the growing stock declined, all most all other reserved forests in Bangladesh more or less suffered from encroachments, of which the plain land Sal forests in Dhaka, Tangail, Mymensingh, Dinajpur and Rangpur Forest Divisions were the most severely affected ones.

Though the Government usually points at ‘population pressure’ to be the main cause of forest depletion in Bangladesh, the South Asia Regional Consultation held under Forest Policy Implementation Review and Strategy of the World Bank at Rajendrapur, Dhaka during 17-19 April 2000 opined that it was the rich and the influential quarters of the society whose role should be questioned in this regard.

The major causes (Nishat and Choudhury 2002) of forest depletion in Bangladesh may be enumerated as under:

• Ever-increasing population pressure and land scarcity.

• Inadequate legal backup.

• Deteriorated law and order.

• Lack of accountability and corruption.

• Lack of proper monitoring.

• Absence of people’s participation.

• Absence of NGOs’ involvement.

• Poor administration.

• Absence of incentives of the FD employees.

• Low priority attached by the Government towards forests, forestry and the FD.

Nishat and Choudhury (2002) while analyzing the problems of Bangladesh Forestry, their causes and consequences identified inadequate people's participation as the major cause of forests depletion.

History of Peoples’ Participation in Bangladesh Forestry

Under the severe constrain of increasing demand for wood against the continuous supply-shortfall, coupled with the fact of impossibility in increasing the FD owned land, Social Forestry activity was initiated for the first time in Bangladesh Forestry in 1979, under an Asian Development Bank (ADB) project, "Afforestation and Settlement in the Unclassed State Forests (USF) of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT)", under loan no 404-BAN, with a major thrust on settling the nomadic shifting cultivators under a participatory approach. Though the success was very limited, it has afforested 7964 hectares of degraded USF land in CHT and has the built-in ingredient of inducing a participatory management idea, where from both the FD personnel and the tribal shifting cultivators were benefited in the long run. Though most of the villages established under this project did not continue for long, because of many flaws from either sides, FD and Shifting Cultivators, one of the sites, "Sharonpara" in the district of Bandarban is continuing till date. This experience was used to formulate participatory forestry project at later stages.

The Community Forestry Development Project (CFDP) under Loan 555-BAN(SF), implemented by the FD during 1981 to 1987 was the second ADB assisted participatory forestry project. Since then however, till date ADB has provided assistance to four more participatory forestry projects in Bangladesh such as Upazila Afforestation and Nursery Development Project (UANDP), Coastal Green Belt Project (CGP), Forestry Sector Project (FSP) and Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project (SBCP), of which the later two are on going.

At the beginning FD started to distribute the seedlings to the members of public free of costs. Though this has no involvement of the people, the later could learn that FD is a source of good seedlings. The later FD programs associated the people in planting activities. Since the encroached plain land Sal forest was a major concern, FD attempted to restore a tree cover on those sites with the participation of the existing encroachers. Initially FD faced a lot of problems to convince these encroachers to join the program. The main reason was distrust. However, FD could overcome this hurdle and large-scale plantations were raised with the implementation of CFDP since 1981. Beneficiaries were either the existing encroachers or poor land-less or destitute of the localities. Agreements were signed with the participants wherein benefit sharing was committed.

At present this has become a set approach. Project wise major achievements are as under (Table 2-5).

Table 2
Major Plantations Raised Under
Community Forestry Development Project
Till June 30, 2001

Choudhury 2001

Table 3
Major Plantations Raised Under
Upazila Afforestation and Nursery Development Project
Till June 30, 2001

Choudhury 2001

Table 4
Major Plantations Raised Under
Coastal Green Belt Project
Till June 30, 2001

Choudhury 2001

Table 5
Major Plantations Raised Under
Forestry Sector Project Till June 30, 2001

Choudhury 2001

Peoples’ participation in Bangladesh forestry started with settling the nomadic shifting cultivators and distribution of forestry seedlings free of costs back in seventies, has achieved a lot by now, wherein the benefit-sharing participants have started receiving their share in cash. Though the participants are yet to be true incumbent of participatory forest management, that they have received a good sum of money as their shares has generated tremendous encouragement among the members of the public to join such program.

Hurdles Faced

The FD faced a lot of problems in implementing these participatory forestry programs. At the beginning there were neither legal back up for such program nor entertainment of the outsiders as participants in the reserved forest area was lawful.

Under such constrain it was a Herculean task to convince the locals, specially the encroachers, that FD personnel, who were deterrent enemies to them till yesterday, will be their friends. Till yesterday the FD had been arresting and implicating these encroachers in many forest and criminal cases. Thus the encroachers could never trust the FD at the beginning. In such a situation, when the FD wanted to involve these encroachers as participants in social forestry program, it was almost impossible; to let these encroachers develop faith on the FD personnel.

At this stage since the whole process of involving the participants was gradually evolving, many of the details had been the applications of the commonsense by the local forest officers. At some stage agreements were signed between local Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) and participants, indicating the shares at felling. Uniformity with respect to the shares of the participants and keeping aside of a portion of the sale proceeds for replanting, for sustainability of the program, were achieved only on June 26, 2000 when the most powerful and highest government entity in this respect, the "Apex Body" came up with clear instruction on sharing mechanism.

At present most of these actions of distributing shares to the participants, keeping of a portion of the sale proceeds as Tree Farming Fund (TFF) for replanting the site, etc. are being done under the cover of executive orders. The 1994 Forest Policy has the provisions to go for all that are required to invoke participatory forest management. Though the revised Forest Act 2000 has the provisions to incorporate participatory forestry to a great extant, formulation of rules are still awaiting.

Participants Benefits

Since this whole process of involving the participants is still in its evolving stage, regular felling of the plantations at set rotations could not be done. Special permissions were required from the high ups of the government for harvest. Till working plans and prescriptions are formally approved and placed before the FD for implementation of these participatory forestry activities, it will have to be continued as such.

Under the prevailing conditions some of the plantations having participants’ involvements were harvested, yield sold out and portion of the sale proceeds have been distributed among the stakeholders. During 2001 and 2002 substantial areas of such plantations have been felled and sale proceeds distributed among the recipient partners, of which participants are important entities.

Table 6 and 7 exhibit the relevant data on yield, value, share etc. for year 2001 and 2002 (ending in June/02).

Table 6
Participatory Forestry Plantations’ Yields
(Year 2000-2001)

Source: Forest Department, Government of Bangladesh.

10% of the sale proceeds were kept as Tree Farming Fund to meet the replanting expenditure on the site.

Take 50 = 1 US$

Table 7
Participatory Forestry Plantations’ Yields
(Year 2001-2002)

Source: Forest Department Government of Bangladesh.

!0% of the sale proceeds were kept as Tree Farming Fund to meet the replanting expenditure of the site.

Take 50 = 1 US$

Since these were 9 to 13 year old plantations each of the three different types of participants has received the following shares during this period (Table 8).

Table 8
(Share received by each participant at the felling of these plantations)

On an average each participant received money worth US$ 524.

Discussions

These participants are very poor and have never seen this much of money as their own. This was a very big sum of money for them. They were overwhelmed at the receipts of such amounts. Now they are more serious and taking keen interest in this sort of participatory forestry activities. They are interested in planting high yielding exotics such as Eucalyptus, Accacia etc. though the government imposed restrictions on planting these species. This is a sign of their getting involved in management aspects of forestry. Though the first phase was "benefit sharing" alone, with the passage of time and their continued involvement, it is expected that participants would get involved in forest management aspects as well in near future. Besides these many of the others who were hesitant to join the program in the past started to create pressure for enrollment. This is definitely a good sign and is expected to enhance peoples' participation in forest management.

Conclusions

Couple of decade’s back participatory forestry was unknown to Bangladesh Forestry. Local people were unwilling to join such program when initiated. But now they are not only willing, rather creating pressure to get them enrolled. Initiated with benefit sharing, the participants are gradually getting involved in the management aspects of forestry. If this trend continues and if the government can handle this properly, it would not be far when FD would be in position to involve such participants in managing their reserved and protected forests as well. Such outcome would combat degradation of the forests in Bangladesh at large.

References

1. ADB(1990): Forestry Master Plan.

2. Coudhury, J.K. (2001) Does forestry pay in Bangladesh?: Lessons from ADB's Forest Sector Projects. ADB seminar held at Dhaka during 3^rd to 5^th December 2001. Pp33.

3. Gain, Philip 1998. Forest and forest people of Bangladesh; Bangladesh land forest and forest people, 2^nd ed. Society for Environment and Human Development, Bangladesh. p 29-50

4. Nishat, A. & Choudhury, J.K. (2002) Forestry, Forest Biodiversity and Governance Towards a Pro-People Policy. US-Aid seminar held at Dhaka on July 31, 2002. Pp 16.