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Community Attitudes Toward Forest Conservation Programs Through Collaborative Protected Area Management in Bangladesh

M. S. H. Chowdhury
Department of Forest Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Shinshu University, 8304 Minamiminowa-Mura,Nagano-Ken 399-4598, Japan

S. Izumiyama
Department of Forest Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Shinshu University, 8304 Minamiminowa-Mura,Nagano-Ken 399-4598, Japan

M. Koike
Department of Forest Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Shinshu University, 8304 Minamiminowa-Mura,Nagano-Ken 399-4598, Japan

C. Gudmundsson
School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

S. A. Mukul
School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

N. Nazia
Department of Zoology, Noakhali Government College, Noakhali, Bangladesh

Md. P. Rana
School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, 80101 Joensuu, Finland

N. Muhammed
School of International Tropical Forestry, University Malaysia Sabah, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

M. Redowan
Department of Forestry & Environmental Science, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet 3114, Bangladesh

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

The formulation of conservation policies with options for creating protected areas is significantly influenced by the social factors of the surrounding communities.Therefore, indigenous knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of the local communities need to be explored during the planning and implementation stages of conservation projects. A government-initiated experiment in co-management was conducted in the Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh. This paper analyzes the attitudes toward conservation by members of local communities living in and around the wildlife sanctuary. Training incentives on alternative income-generating (AIG) activities and allotment of agricultural lands were distributed among the Forest User Groups. It is of interest to policy makers and resource managers whether this technique leads to improved attitudes on the part of local people. Although there were different attitudes toward protected areas and conservation,overall, a favorable attitude of the respondents was observed. The opinions of respondents also varied based on factors such as village position, village dependency level on forest resources, ethnicity and gender. Increase in annual income resulting from the augmented skills by trainings on AIG activities and getting agricultural lands leased from the Forest Department contributed significantly to the variation in respondents’ conservation attitudes. It is suggested that eliminating inequity and inequality in incentive distribution,discovering and launching training on more need-based livelihood activities, and liberalizing the restriction of resource extraction from the protected area by fixing the harvesting limit would encourage the community to be more cordially and actively involved in the conservation efforts of the sanctuary.

Keywords: Biodiversity conservation, Protected area, Stakeholders, Forest User Group, Bangladesh

Location:

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Attitude

Objectives:

This study was conducted among the local communities in and around Rema-KalengaWildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh, to analyze attitudes regarding various perceptions of forest conservation, community development and people’s participation in a co-management program

Methodology:

Study site Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary is situated in Gazipur and Ranigaon unions (small administrative unit of the local government) of Chunarughat upazila (sub-district) in Habigonj district, Bangladesh (BCAS2008). It is under the jurisdiction of Habigonj-2 Forest Range of Sylhet Forest Division located approximately 130 km east–northeast of the capital Dhaka and 80 km southeast of Sylhet city. The sanctuary is bounded by Tripura State of India to the south and east, the Kalenga Forest Range to the north and west, and tea estates to the southwest.Bioecologically it falls under the Sylhet Hills zones as part of the Tarap Hill Reserve Forest, of which 1,095 ha was first designated as wildlife sanctuary first in 1982 before being expanded further to 1,995 ha in 1996 under the Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) Order 1973.

This was a micro-approach study, conducted among the members of the FUGs of Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary in the months of January and February 2009. Multi-stage partly random sampling was used in the study. A preliminary discussion was carried out at the Forest Range Office located in the sanctuary with the Forest Department officials,members of the Co-management Committee and local leaders of the community. The objective of the discussion was to provide information on the work intended, to collect an over all picture of the various stakeholders and forest-dependent local community and to select a village guide. An experienced middle-aged male was selected from the local community as to be the guide of the four-member research team. The team was headed by the first author and voluntarily assisted by the other three who were post-graduate students of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Science of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh. The research assistants had the experience of community survey with background knowledge in forest–people relationship.Out of the 36 villages of varying degrees of dependency, five were selected from major stakeholders, two from medium, two from minor-medium and one from minor stake-holders, making a total of 10 villages. In terms of position, one village was inside the sanctuary, five were adjacent, and four were outside. These are Debrabari (inside-major stakeholder), Chanbari (adjacent-major stakeholder), Balumara (adjacent-major stake-holder), Kalengabari(adjacent-major stakeholder), Chakidarbari (adjacent-major stake-holder), Jamburachara (adjacent-medium stakeholder), Harinmara (outside-medium stakeholder), Himalia (outside-minor-medium stakeholder), Basulla (outside-minor-medium stakeholder) and Krishnanagar (outside-minor stakeholder). The village sizes ranged from 18 to 300 households; therefore, we sampled the cent percent households from the villages with major stakeholders and 15–20 % from the others. Out of 67 FUGs, we selected 25 groups at random, five of which had female members. Finally, a total of 302households were selected randomly for the study. An open-ended semi-structured questionnaire, pretested for the intelligibility in the local community, was used for the face-to-face interviews of the respondents. It was designed to gather information relating to various socioeconomic, demographic and cultural variables. Both the quantitative and qualitative data were collected during the study. Household heads (male 232, female 70) were the respondents and were assisted by other members of the family as necessary. In the family level, informal meetings were held in the interviewee’s home using the native language (Bangla), sometimes with the participation of more than one respondent together, every one being selected randomly. In addition, one focus group discussion was arranged in each village at the end of the survey. This was done to find the perception of the community and to cross-check the validity of opinions recorded during the interviews. The measurement of respondent attitudes about various conservation issues was assessed using a Likert scale (Likert1932). The Likert scale is a method of ascribing quantitative value to qualitative data, to make it amenable to statistical analysis. Likert scales usually have five potential choices (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree) but sometimes go up to ten or more. A numerical value is assigned to each potential choice, and a mean figure for all the responses is computed at the end of the evaluation or survey. The final average score represents overall level of accomplishment or attitude toward the subject matter. Although this is mainly used in training course evaluations and market surveys, it has been widely used for assessing the community attitudes on natural resource management, protected and other conservation areas (e.g., Mehta and Heinen2001; Baral and Heinen2007; Rodela and Udovc2008; Pipinos and Fokiali 2009; Nicholas and Thapa2010). In our study, five choices with numerical values from 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) were used. Attitude was defined using attitude theory (Ajzen and Fishbein1980) as human psychological tendencies expressed by evaluating a particular object with favor or disfavor, or, in this case, agree or disagree to the statements given. Data obtained were then organized and analyzed by using SPSS 15.

Source of Information: Environ Dev Sustain (2014) 16:1235–1252

Article Link (Online Journal): DOI 10.1007/s10668-014-9524-y

Funding Source:

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Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

In the study area, local communities expressed positive attitudes toward forest conservation efforts through protected areas. This study revealed the efficacy of co-management approach in strengthening the protected area system in Bangladesh. It was inferred that the efficacy becomes conspicuous when co-management program is launched with the pro-vision of need-based incentive packages. As the strategy of providing incentives, the Forest Department’s contemporary thoughtful initiative of AIG supports motivated local stake-holders to cooperate in carrying out the conservation programs. However, for the ultimate success in conserving the biological diversity, a pragmatic mission should be commenced on to diminish the defects prevailing in the whole system. In that connection, findings of the present study would be hint-worthy for the policy makers in forestry sector of Bangladesh and other countries with the similar biophysical and socioeconomic contexts.Therefore, the findings are envisioned for developing participatory action plans considering the community needs and thoughts toward livelihood development and biodiversity conservation. The state Forest Department may use the findings as tools for protected area management through active involvement of local communities, where their behavioral mindset would be reflected more realistically.

Knowledge Management: Journal