Restoration of degraded forest ecosystem through non-forestry livelihood supports: experience from the Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary in Bangladesh

Mohammad Mahfuzur Rahman,Md Abdullah Al Mahmud,Farid Uddin Ahmed

doi:10.1080/21580103.2017.1349003

Mohammad Mahfuzur Rahman, Md Abdullah Al Mahmud + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/21580103.2017.1349003

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Abstract

ABSTRACTLack of non-forestry income sources for the forest-dependent community was one of the major causes of continued biodiversity loss in Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS). A livelihood support program was implemented from July 2012 through June 2015 to reduce people's forest-dependence for their livelihoods. We evaluated the efficacy of this program in enhancing the biodiversity health of CWS. An Ordinary Least Square regression framework was used to estimate the difference in difference of the income between the control and the treatment households. Alongside, the biodiversity attributes of the CWS were measured in 2012 and 2015 and were compared. The intervention increased a treatment household's monthly non-forestry income by BDT11,781 and decreased its monthly forest income by BDT2128. In contrast, with increased natural regeneration of 8.43%, 12 out of the 16 major species at CWS showed increased importance value index (IVI). The IVI increased by 48.03% for Acacia auriculiformis and decreased by 56.30% and 31.76% for Dipterocarpus turbinatus and Tectona grandis, respectively. As confirmed by the households, this biodiversity improvement could be attributed to the livelihood intervention program at CWS. Continued monitoring is important to sustain the successes of the program.

Highlights

Protected Areas (PAs) are the last remaining vital natural resource systems that support ecological and economic developments in Bangladesh
Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS) is one of the most important among the co-managed PAs in the country, supporting the livelihoods of 50,000 people living in 9400 households in the area (IPAC 2011)
Household income analysis by income sources showed that the livelihood support program has significantly reduced the forest dependency of the CWS community

Summary

Introduction

Protected Areas (PAs) are the last remaining vital natural resource systems that support ecological and economic developments in Bangladesh. Even though the PAs cover a small percentage of the land surface of Bangladesh, a large number of the rural poor are PA-dependent for their subsistence (Roy and DeCosse 2006; Sharma 2011). Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS) is one of the most important among the co-managed PAs in the country, supporting the livelihoods of 50,000 people living in 9400 households in the area (IPAC 2011). In a study conducted in Satchari National Park, a PA in northeastern Bangladesh, Mukul and Quazi (2007) reported that 37% of the forest-dependent people in the PA were extremely poor with monthly household income below BDT2000 (US$1 = BDT78). Most of the people in this area were either day laborers (62%) or non-wage agricultural workers (21%) (Bari and Dutta 2003; Hoque 2009)

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