On sustainable development of social forestry in Bangladesh: case of SAL forests

There is a growing consensus amongst key forest decision-makers in Bangladesh that traditional forestry is needed to make the transition to more sustainable forestry,which is likely to involve local people in forest management.As a result,the government has initiated a social forestry program from 1981 with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank(ADB) loan and the United Nations Development Program(UNDP) grant and operated mainly in Sal forest areas(there were following programs in these areas till nowdays).The most important objective of this program is to protect,manage,and develop forests in a sustainable way by involving local communities.Although several studies have focused on the management issues of social forestry,none of these studies has evaluated the indicators of sustainable social forestry.The purpose of this study is to evaluate the criteria of sustainable development of social forestry in Bangladesh.