Reckoning Participatory Forest Management in Bangladesh: Study from its Implementation Perspective

Once upon a time Bangladesh was famous for its tropical evergreen and mangrove forest. But over the years due to over exploitation of forests and its non-participatory management, more than 50% of the forest resources have been depleted. Realizing the grim effect of destruction of forests and to repair the lapidated environmental condition, both the government and non-government organization have taken up afforestation program. The NGOs have added a new dimension in the forest management, which has ensured participation of the community people and protection of the vegetation. Although, the government has also adopted participatory forest management but due to bureaucratic attitude easy access of the poor habitants are restricted in many cases. To overcome these situations, the existing government forestry policy, needs radical modification. There should be room to accommodate the NGOs, grass root organizations and general people in policy formulation, execution and evaluation of the program.