Meanings, opportunities and challenges of cultural ecosystem services-based coastal management in the Sundarbans mangroves, Bangladesh

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems provide vital life-supporting functions to adjacent communities through a diverse range of ecosystem services. Sustainable management of coastal ecosystems can therefore address multiple issues of biodiversity and human well-being in an integrated way. In this context, addressing socio-ecological components through cultural ecosystem services is a viable way to approach the conservation of coastal ecosystems. Accordingly, in this study, we look at cultural interlinkages between the local resource harvesters and the Sundarbans coastal mangrove ecosystems in Bangladesh. We clarify how these cultural interlinkages help to generate a bundle of ecosystem services that are related to human well-being. The chapter also links these cultural components to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, relating to sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources, and SDG 15, concerning the management of forests, the reversal of land degradation and biodiversity loss. This approach to management of marine and terrestrial ecosystems in coastal areas does not compromise the local sociology or the diverse ecosystem services they provide, and is deemed to be genuinely sustainable.