Forest management in Bangladesh has a history of over a century. Initially, management concentrated mainly on natural forests, principally mangrove and Dipterocarpus forests, and to a lesser extent on small areas of plantations, chiefly teak. Multidata inventory surveys are not available for all Bangladesh's forests. Approximately 65% of the forest area was measured twice in the past 30 years - the reserved forests of Sundarbans, Kassalong, Rankhiang, Sangu and Matamuhuri.
Bangladesh's natural forests are controlled by the Forest Department and fall under three classes: hill forests (48%), inland sal forests (9%) and mangrove forests (43%). Rural inventories show an overall depletion in forest resources in all the major forests. For example, the growing stock in the Sundarbans fell from 20.3 million m3 in 1960 to 13.2 million m3 in 1984, a 35% decline over 25 years. In the reserved forests of Chittagong Hill Tracts, growing stock decreased from 23.8 million m3 in 1964 to below 19.8 million m3 in 1985.
Accurate information on tree cover density in all forests is not available. One estimate puts the average density in State forests at about 57%. Other estimates indicate that the current average growing stock in government forests is only just over 30 m3/ha and that the growing stock in 1990s was approximately two thirds of 1980s 71 million m3. Deforestation is a prominently visible phenomenon, and equally seriously, although less conspicuous, is depletion and degradation of stocking conditions.
Forest cover losses in Bangladesh remain unsurveyed or unmapped and their exact size and location are not conclusively determined, except for periodic visual observations. These estimates indicate that damage affects one eighth of the country's land area. The different estimates of deforestation reported in various sources are not mutually consistent. In the absence of survey and demarcation of areas classified as forests, it is not possible to improve the information base. About half of the land area controlled by the Forest Department lacks tree cover. By major class, forested areas are: hill forests (including unclassed state forests) 54% cover, sundarbans 99% and sal forests 32%. Figures 27 to 29 illustrate recent areas of forest loss rates in three of Bangladesh's main forests.
Major causes of deforestation Deforestation results mainly from agriculture land clearing, principally shifting cultivation. Other causes include landuse changes, encroachments, grazing, fire, uncontrolled and wasteful commercial logging, illegal fellings and fuelwood collection. The direct causes are the symptoms or effects of a wide malaise - poverty, landlessness, economic underdevelopment, inappropriate forest policies and regulations, lack of landuse planning, uncertainties in land tenure system and socio-political instability. Local economic conditions provide strong economic and financial incentives to those involved in encroachment and illegal felling. GOB is unable to solve the problem of restrictive convenants and punitive legislation. |
Shifting Cultivation - Shifting cultivation goes with primitive economies and isolated cultural communities. Shifting cultivation is characterized by a rotation of fields rather than by crops, accompanied by slashing and burning. In a situation of little, or no, population or market pressure, shifting cultivation is environmentally acceptable. There were stable cases of integrated land use, and good agroforestry. However, with a developing market economy and the inevitable population pressure on land, the once elegant system of shifting cultivation collapsed into degradation and retrogression, influenced by factors both internal and external to the system. Control or regulation of jhuming is not effective and vast tracts are denuded in the hill regions. About 60,000 families engaged in shifting cultivation involve an area of about 85,000 hectares of the hill forests reserves, excluding the shifting cultivation in the Chittagong hill tracts.
Encroachment - Encroachment is a serious problem both in the plain land sal forests and the hill forests, however, information available about encroachment is scarce. Encroached lands lack legal surveys and the exact area involved is unknown. Current data are the visual estimates of the Forest Department field staff. The encroachment problem in the forest areas of Chittagong, Chittagong hill tracts and Cox's Bazar is political and involves cyclone refugees. Encroached sal forests in the central and northern Bangladesh area result from tenurial uncertainties. Organized encroachments carried out by `dummy encroachers' supported by politically powerful local groups also exist. The Forest Department is unable to control these encroachments. Lack of coordination between the Land Department and the Forest Department in land transfers and records adds to the problem. Some 77,000 hectares of forest land involving 12,200 families appear involved.
Land Transfers - Land transfers have taken place where forested land get diverted for purposes of human settlement, development of industry, fishery, transport and communications, irrigation, energy and power, mining, tourism, educational institutions and defence. The extent of such transfers was about 61,000 hectares until 1984.
New Land Accretions - While existing forest cover is being lost on a large scale, there are some gains on a smaller scale by afforestation of denuded areas and newly accreted land. The large sediment load, estimated at 1.5 to 1.8 billion MT annually, and carried by the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system, creates a dynamic delta-farming process. There is an overall seaward movement of the belt of mangrove forests as more silt and mud are deposited at the mouth of rivers. This gives rise to a permanent ecological transfer of sites on the landward fringe to dryland vegetation above tidal influence.
Within the sedimentation zone in the Bay of Bengal, the processes of land accretion and erosion are going on simultaneously. A comparative Landsat imagery study shows a net accretion of 35,650 hectares in coastal districts over a three-year period. A BFD programme to plant mangroves in the coastal areas started in 1966, and has continued as an important programme in the sector. Since initiation, an area of about 125,000 hectares of newly accreted land planted with mangrove species now exists. A new seven-year programme for afforesting about 33,000 hectares with mangroves began in 1992, as part of the Forest Resources Management Project.
Accreted lands are the Government's property and are the responsibility of the Ministry of Land Administration and Land Reform. In 1976 the Government, recognizing the role of mangroves in stabilizing newly formed lands, decided to transfer the management of 498,000 hectares of newly formed lands in the four coastal divisions to the Forest Department for afforestation purposes. Originally, the transfer was intended for 10 years but was extended to 20 years in 1985. Objectives of the coastal afforestation programme have evolved through the years. Initially conceived to provide a shelterbelt as an added protection against tidal bore and cyclones, it soon became apparent that more benefits were possible. While the prime goal of the coastal afforestation remained the creation of new land for agricultural use (also for shrimp farming), virtually no land has reverted back to the relevant authorities. Currently, the suggestion is to return the land for reallocation when the plantations get harvested or become unsuitable for mangroves.
While the potential contribution of coastal plantations towards mitigating the damages from tidal and storm surges is not disputed, their financial success will depend on a viable (and value adding) programme utilizing wood products. As fuelwood, plantation value at site is negligible. A utilization plan (using wood resources of the afforested coastal area) for promoting processing industry will help to improve the income and employment situation in the adjoining areas.
