NVIRONMENTAL degradation. evident in many countries today, is often the result of conflict over access to forest resources within communities, between commu-nities, and between communities and outside entities.

People in forest-based conununities compete with one another for scarce forest resources for a variety bf domestic uses while at the same time growing needs of local rural and urban areas and of world markets have led to commercial exploitation of these same forests. Competition-led conflicts are 'invariably complex because the different forest products have many different users, and decisions about use have long term effects.

When national-level decision and policies dealing with common resource management are made, they often ignore traditional rules of land and tree tenure. Growing inequity of access, as well as lack of confidence in future access, cause people to cut down forests and resist conservation efforts, as some individuals act in their ’ own immediate interests rather than the community's longterm interests.

The case of rural deforestation in developing countries is a good example where complex interaction between social structure and the ecological system in which it is embedded can lead to urisustainibility.

There are many reasons for deforestation in the developing countries like Bangladesh: poverty, population growth, modernisation, scarcity of land and migration of people to virgin forests in search of land (the Sundarbans), conversion of forest and pastures into cultivable land to feed increasin6 population, wasteful and unsustainable commercial logging facilitated through unabated corruption, misguided government policies in exploiting forest resources and slash and burn cultivation of the migrating landless people, etc.

Sustainable

Development and Forestry

For Bangladesh, forests represent one of its most important economic asset. They are not only home to millions of people but also provide wood for fuel, timber for domestic con-Kiction, rattan, honey, barn-

. fuel and fruits which make

important contribution to its economy. With deforestation, the production of these products are reduced significantly and thus the economy suffer. Forests also provide desperately needed jobs for the local people.

The forests also represent important factors for lessening floods and deforestation. The density of trees and layers of leaves reduces the temperature inside the forest, allows humus to propagate, lessens the impact of heavy rainfall by stopping landslides, permits gradual absorption of rainwater, thus stopping floods downstream and preventing desertification.

Deforestation in Bangladesh

The forest area in Bangladesh has been reduced by more than 50 per cent over the last 20 years. It also has one of the lowest forest land/ population ratios in the world. Land is an extremely scarce resource in Bangladesh and agriculture, industries, and human settlements are competing for this land. In recent times large areas of rain forests are being cleared in the south of the country for shrimp cultivation which is mainly exported overseas.

Forests play an important role in Bangladesh. The rural people are dependent on the forest for their fuel. food, fodder and building material. Forests contribute 3 per cent of GNP and 2 per cent of the employment in Bangladesh.

Two hundred and forty-five million ha or 17 per cent of the country's total land area is either forested or 'considered' forest land. The actual area that is under tree cover is about half. About 9Q percent of the forest government owned and the rest is privately owned village forests. The annual deforestation rate is estimated to be 8000 ha.

There four major types of forests in Bangladesh: hill forest. mangrove forest, plainland sal forest and village forest. Almost 60 per cent of the forests are hill forests and of these about 30 per cent are controlled by the forest department. The remaining are under the control of the hill district council which are largely autonomous and are classified as unclassed state forest, The tribes in the Chittagong hill Tracts region are the inhabitants of these forests largely practising

shifting cultivation thus causing total destruction of these forests. The mangrove forests in Bangladesh are mainly the Sunderhans and some coastal plantations. The Sundarb^ns are considered to be one of the richest tropical wildlife habitat in the world.

Plainland forests cover 4.9 per cent of the forest land of Bangladeshi and these forests are generally degraded and have very low productivity. The remaining 11 per cent are village forests and these are exclusively owned by the private citizens.. These forest are also the most productive 90 per cent of all fuel consumed, 80 percent of the bamboo and about 70 per cent of all the logs cut down in the commercial establishments come from village forests. -

Government Forestry Policies

A brief analysis of government policies of Bangladesh concerning uses and protection of their forest resources and their subsequent failures in necessary. Not only have they failed environmentally in lost resources and but also lost large revenues through misplaced considerations, concessions and incentives in order to protect timber and wood processing Industries.

Private Property Rights: As we have seen almost the entire forest area in Bangladesh is

owriecTby the government. The property rights of the forests are defined nut since legal system is inefficient and there is very minimal enforcement, so nobody respects these rights. Thus this clearly is an example of the "tragedy of the commons”. This means people around the forests see it as open access property and there is no incentive to protect it. As everyone is only concerned about maximising his own benefit, the economic and social values of the forest is not respected by anyone and as ah consequence the forest deteriorates through encroachment.

Rent Seeking: The underpricing of timber sold to government owned industries-mainly to paper industries can lead to overharvesting. Bangladesh has mainly two firedominant paper producing actory-Khulna News Mill which produces mainly newsprint using Shegun and Shundari trees of the Sundar-bans and Karnaphuli Paper mill which produces different varieties of paper using bamboo from the Chittagong hill tracts forests. Both the factories pay ridiculously low prices for wood compared to the market price. This can be treated as subsidy by the government to the mills to keep the prices of paper in the market low. It has been concluded that Bangladesh paper

industry is operating at a cost level above the international price level. Simultaneously the price regulations make it impossible to sell paper at a rea-’ sonable level of profit because of the political decision to sup-Krt education and mass media keeping the paper prices down

The subsidy reduces the production costs and thus increases the amount demanded. As the prices do not reflect the scarcity of the resource, there is no incentive to conserve it or to plant new trees for planting.

Logging Rights: I n Bangladesh the government often require that the private parties logging the forest begin and finish harvesting in a certain period of time. This rush leads to inaccurate surveys' producing compromised or inadequate data of environmental or economic consequences. In addition governments also limit their agreements with private parties to periods that are much shorter than a single forest rotation.

Logging charges in public forests and their form significantly affect the pattern and level of harvesting as well as the amount of captured rent obtained by the government. In Bangladesh the forests are divided into separate blocks every year and then handed over to the highest bidder through pub-

lic bidding. Thus forest charges are usually based on the volume of timber removed from a "block", not the amount of timber that can actually be sold on the market. This combined with high transport cost and narrow market preferences for certain types of trees give strong incentives for the loggers to go for the most valuable trees. In Sundarbans (Bangladesh) this is for Shegun trees.

Political Corruption: The bureaucracy in Bangladesh is corrupt. Thus the policies are made purposefully to get bribes. High profits in forestry industry also encourages dishonesty.

Other major reasons for these inefficient government policies include: lack of financial fund for enforcement, unavailability of reliable data, underestimation of environmental cost and loss of bio-diversity. structural adjustments in the country's monetary policy. lack of investment in the forestry sector. Lack of information. migration of nontribal people to Chittagong Hill Tracts .ignoring the knowledge of the local people in sustainably exploiting the forest resource by the governments.

Community Forestry: How it Works?

Forestry professionals have come to realise that efforts to address problems of deforesta-

tion apd environmental degradation must be built upon the active participation of members of rural communities. Rural women and men have more knowledge about local needs than policy makers or outside experts, and it is they who have the greatest vested interest in the sustainable use of local resources. When rural people are not involved as partners in the design and implementation of forestry projects, government efforts to address local as well as national objectives chronically fail. The same can be said of efforts at environmental Conflict management: forest resource decision-making has a greater likelihood of succeeding if it includes the informed participation of all stakeholders involved in a conflict.

Bangladesh does not have any national community forestry programmes. At present the NGOs which are active in various projects for socioeconomic uplift are also spearheading community forestry projects. At present around 600 NGOs are engaged in community forests activities across the country. One thing must be noted Here that community forest in other countries (i.e. Nepal) meant engaging people directly in sustainable forest management of the national forests, in case of Bangladesh it implied afforestation of new lands with the help of local people as the countiy has veiy scant forest area .

The Requirement of Community Forestry

Community forestry is based on the fact that the concerns and expectations of government and local people are not necessarily the same. Similarly, indigenous communities and their political organisations may have distinct agendas. Conservation and development project design and policy must become more attuned to such differences and help bridge them. The community forestry is therefore based on an agreement between the villagers and the government that stipulates that the authority and the responsibility of a fixed a forest area is handed over to the vil-. lagers (Forest User Group) and’ that government still owns the land. In the other case the villagers are provided with seedlings and Other information, villagers tend those seedlings and then harvest

them. Long-term credit Is provided and the villagers pay back with their revenues from their sale of firewood. Thus forest becomes a resource for the villagers that can facilitate community development and other forms of social works form the income-generated from it.

Sustainable forestry is generally defined as the forest management that maximises the long-term, net benefits and that means forest use should not exceed its ability to regenerate itself. Trees can be a profitable commercially as long as the prices reflect its shortage and the farmers have right to sell and own them

For a sustainable community forestry to supplement inefficient government forest resources management policies some basic criteria need to be fulfilled: flexible bureaucracy to support decentralised forest resources management so that it is possible fo assess and quantify peoples participation in community forestry programs. control migration, logging and other unsustainable forest management practices, create employment opportunities for rural people, provide information for alternative sources of energy, etc.

Conclusion

Sustainable natural forest management is highly dependent on long-term commitment from resource users and national institutions. Tenure systems tailored for natural forest management will help support that commitment. Tenure arrangements should provide secure access rights for resource users and security for the continued existence of forest resources.

One can argue that, when incorporated into broader participatory strategies and adapted to the local cultural context, alternative conflict management like community forest^ programmes can empower communities to develop creative solutions to their forest resource dilemmas for policymakers in Bangladesh. Having local people participate in designating forest reserves and benefit from their uses, can increase acceptance of protected areas and decrease the burden of enforcement significantly.

The writer is a Socio-, Economist with the Programme Development Unit in Intermediate Technology Development Group, Bangladesh.