SOCIAL FORESTRY FOR WOMEN LIVELIHOOD IN THE RURAL SOCIETY OF JESSORE, BANGLADESH

Abstract

Women’s rights and privileges are now global issues. Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh has reviewed all its policies and programmes to remove gender discrimination and to bring women in the mainstream of development arenas to warrant their roles are significant. In the very recent past women participation was emphasized in forestry activities in Bangladesh. Social forestry programme is such an important sector where rural poor and destitute women have actively been participating during the last decade. Data were collected from 100 randomly selected women who have been working in the social forestry programme of the Forest Extension Division and two national NGOs namely Jagoroni Chakra and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) supported by the Social Forestry Extension Circle, Jessore, Bangladesh. This study demonstrated that the social forestry programme contributed for the livelihood improvement of the rural women through their active participation in the programme. Social awareness, health consciousness, family decision making power, and income generation capability built by the social forestry programme for the rural women in Bangladesh. Sustainability of the livelihood for women from social forestry programme would be an issue, need to be addressed in future studies.