Performance evaluation of forest co-management: a case study of Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh

Abstract

The objective was to evaluate the performance of the co-management of Nishorgo Support Project at Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary in Bangladesh. I adopted the Focus Groups Discussion method for opinion survey and applied the SWOT-AHP technique for data analysis. Local people did not participate in the decision-making process of forest management and they perceived co-management as a threat to their livelihoods. Moreover, mistrust and misunderstanding among different stakeholders, political and ethical conflicts, lack of property rights of tribal communities, and lack of accountability and transparency were identified as the drawbacks of co-management.