Chapter30 - Livelihood and health vulnerabilities of forest resource-dependent communities amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in southwestern regions of Bangladesh

Abstract

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has affected and virtually changed the life and livelihoods of people across the world, and the forest resource-dependent communities (FRDCs) in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh are no exception. Aiming at identifying the changes in the livelihood and healthcare-seeking behavior of FRDCs during COVID-19, an in-depth interview approach was adopted. The FRDCs, including fishermen, crabbers, honey hunters, and nipa leaf (i.e., Golpata) collectors, have been experiencing an unprecedented event as the government-imposed sanctions on entering the Sundarbans - the only source of income in many cases. Left without any other source of income, some of them were engaged in illegal resource extraction, while most of the people of FRDCs have either remained unemployed or borrowed money at high interest to maintain the family. The financially marginalized FRDCs, thus, have no alternative but to seek medical assistance from the quacks or pharmacies. Without the collaborative interventions of the government and its development partners, the FRDCs are not going to change their fate from the ‘extremely poor.’