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Depletion of Tropical Forests with Particular Reference to Bangladesh

By Nawshadul Haque, mnhaque@hotmail.com 

The writer is currently a postgraduate research student at the University of Sydney, Australia and also a member of the academic staff in the Forestry & Wood Technology Discipline, Khulna University.

Forest depletion has become a severe phenomenon in all over the world and developing countries in particular in recent times. An attempt was taken to estimate the world's forest resources by the Food and Agricultural Organisations of United Nations in 1990. The global assessment included 179 countries with a total land area of 12900 million ha. Forests constituted slightly over 3400 million ha or 27% of the land area. The total growing stock was 384000 million m³ . Forests of the developed regions represented by about 42% of the total global forest area and 43% of total growing stock. The same figures for the developing region were 58% and 57% respectively. The loss of forest area during 1980-90 was estimated to 163 million ha, of which 154 million ha was in the tropics only. Mainly as a result of population growth and shrinking forest area in the developing regions, per capita forest area fell globally from an average of nearly 1.2 ha in the 1960 to 0.6 ha in 1990 and it is projected to be less than 0.2 ha by 2020. Deforestation and forest degradation trends are expected to continue and even to worsen, unless policies are set and implemented to conserve the world's forest resources. The problems of local wood shortages, land degradation, global warming, and biodiversity loss were expected to be exacerbated (FAO, 1995a).

Bangladesh is the one of the most densely populated country in the tropics. Bangladesh lies between 20^o 34¢ and 26^o 38¢ north latitude and between 88^o 01¢ and 92^o 41¢ east longitude. Agriculture is the major land use of the country. The country has got 13.02 million ha area with 120 million people. The total forest area of Bangladesh is about 2.47 million ha, which nearly accounts for 18% of its total land area, which is 0.15% of the world's total tropical forests.

Some facts and conditions of the forestry sector in Bangladesh

There are a lot of controversial estimates among the organisations on the scale of forest area and the deforestation rate in the country. In Bangladesh, though forest land is 18-19% of the total land area, 10-12% are declared as forest and tree cover is only 5-7% according to a present estimate. Other estimate says that the total natural forest cover 769000 ha which is 5.9% of total land area and the area of plantations is 335000 ha which is 2.5% of the total land area (FAO, 1993).

The Ganges, the Jamuna and the Meghna river system with their tributaries, one of the largest in the world (watershed area is about 1090000 sq. km) brings 2.4 billion tonnes of silt per year and the coastal land of Bangladesh is growing towards the Bay of Bengal. The rate of new accretion was 35 sq. km/year in 1989. These lands are more or less stable and suitable for artificial mangrove afforestation. Realising the above facts the government Forest Department (FD) started a massive afforestation programme since 1965 and up to June, 1985 an amount of 37000 ha coastal land had been planted. The total area of present coastal plantation may be about 89000 ha. The FD estimated area is probably more but contradicts with the survey of Space Research and Remote Sensing Organisation (SPARRSO) in Bangladesh. The available area for future plantation in the coastal region in Bangladesh may be about 100000 ha.

There are 57000 wood industry production units with 0.21 million employees. Primary industries include sawmilling and pulp and paper, plywood/veneer, match and panelboard. Secondary industries are furniture, seasoning, treatment and preservation. The estimated demand for saw logs in the country in 1991 was 4.3 million m³ compared to a sustainable local supply of 1.3 million m³ . The 1993 total wood supply is 6.2 million m³ against a demand of 8.34 million. Sixty-five percent of forest products are consumed as fuelwood. Unrecorded production, illicit felling and smuggling accounts for 20% of supplies (GOB, 1993). Including all aspects, estimated total forestry employment today is 0.8 million persons. However, considering its seasonal nature, possibly up to 1.5 million people benefit from forestry related work directly. Forestry sector contributes to about 3% of total GDP in Bangladesh. There are intangible benefits, which are not considered in financial terms.

Scale and causes of deforestation in Bangladesh

Forest lands account for almost 18% of the nation's land area according to FD. Just over 5% of forest land is protected. Bangladesh's natural forests are controlled by the government Forest Department and fall broadly under three main classes: hill forests, inland deciduous Sal forests, and the Sundarbans mangrove forests.

Inventories show an overall depletion in forest stocks in all the major forests. About half of the land area controlled by the FD lacks tree cover. The average annual destruction of forest land in the country was 8000 ha in 1980 and subsequently it increased to 38000 ha in 1981-90 according to FAO (1993). But probably the rate of destruction of forest is more severe than the official statistics. It is very difficult to estimate the real picture indeed.

Deforestation affects one eighth of the country's land areas. The major direct cause of deforestation is the land clearances for agriculture, principally through shifting cultivation in the hill forests. Other causes include land use changes, forest land encroachments, grazing, fire, uncontrolled and waste full commercial logging, illegal felling, and fuel wood collection (GOB, 1993). Bangladesh's low land area to man ratios illustrate the intensive competition for the very limited land resources. Deforestation and degradation of the forest resource is the direct result, both are increasing as the population expands. While existing forest cover is lost on a large scale, there are very small gains by afforestation of denuded areas and newly accreted land. Local wood supply cannot keep up with the demand for raw materials resulting in shortages and increased use of imports. Biomass fuels are predominantly used in household cooking. Outdated inefficient technology is evident in forest resource harvesting and manufacturing, resulting in unnecessary wastage.

Hill Forests

This type of forest is tropical moist evergreen and semi-evergreen in nature (greater Chittagong, CHT and Sylhet region) which comprise roughly 45% of the country's total forest. The main species are natural Dipterocarps and its associates including also a portion of plantation species. The main causes of depletion of hill forest is due to shifting cultivation and over-exploitation. Clear felling followed by artificial regeneration system has been practised in the hill forest for long period. Ironically the fact is that these areas were not replanted with proper management and silvicultural practices. The establishment of the plantation is also really difficult in the clear felled areas due many other causes, among which, extreme human interference, encroachment of the land for agricultural conversion and habitation and the grazing are the main problems. Tribal people inhabit in some part of the hill forests, who usually practice the shifting cultivation. The small boundary of Bangladesh with Myanmar is in this hill forest area. The Rohynga refugees of about 1 million were forced to take shelter in the hill forests area in 1990 due to the military operation in that part of Myanmar adjacent to Bangladesh. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees are working till now to repatriate them again in Myanmar. A quarter of them has already returned. In the meantime of the slow negotiation process a great havoc of destruction of the large part of the forest has occurred. This has put oil in the fire of destruction which was continuing previously by the local illegal timber traders. The illicit felling is done by the poor villagers, who usually work for the illegal traders, local influential leaders and forest land encroachers.

The Sal (Shorea spp) Forests

The Sal forests comprise an area of 0.12 million ha. This belongs under the tropical moist deciduous forest class (greater Dhaka, Mymenshing, Tangail, Rangpur and Dinjapur region) which constitutes of about 10% of the total forest. The great destruction occurred during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1970 in the whole country and in the Sal forests as well. The natural Sal forests was previously managed under clear felling followed by coppice regeneration. Government banned the felling realising the fact that the forest had degraded due to excessive felling and coppicing. But the law was unable to protect this natural deciduous forest. This central and northern part of the country is most densely populated. The main cause of depletion of this forest was due to the land clearance for agriculture and forest land encroachment. The almost half of the total Sal forest has been already depleted. The remaining patches are in poor condition, degraded and in the process of depletion. Some measures by the government and also non-governmental organisations were taken to involve the farmer in the forestry i.e., agroforestry and community woodlot plantations. This was in vein and ineffective to halt the deforestation process and encroachment in spite of very little success. The negligence and corruption of the government forest department staffs and the extended support of the local political leaders to the encroachers are also liable. Recently, another problem has been found that the farmers who participated in the community forestry programs are not getting their share from the harvesting of the crop. Initially all shareholders agreed to the program that the profit will be distributed to them according to some predetermined ratio. However, due to lack of proper management and prompt response from the government FD when the plantations have reached to the harvesting age for the first rotation, the farmers stoped looking after the plantations. Mature trees are now being felled and taken away by the illicit loggers taking this opportunity of inactivity of farmers. Once the trusts of the farmers are lost, then it will be very difficult to regain for government FD and to implement this type of participatory approach of forestry practice in future.

Encroachment and illicit removal of timber and firewood from the forests are the major forest conservation problems in the area. The Sal forests are under constant human pressure from all sides as there were no boundary of the forest. The forests are in patches, intermingled with private agricultural lands and habitation encircling that small blocks of forest. The areas under encroachments estimated about 0.036 million ha and the number of encroachers are about 100000. The chief reasons of encroachments are: legal lacunae due to past tenurial history of the lands, and intricate nature of the boundary of the forest land and cultivable lands, and failure to complete the forest settlement operations initiated in the 1950's. The main reason of illicit removal of timber are: wide gap between the demand and supply of wood and its consequent high prices (illicit removal of even a head-load of firewood turns out to be more paying than a day's wage of rural labourer, removal of timber and poles is even more paying); limited year round employment in rural areas resulting in compelling dependence on collection of wood from the forests for subsistence; existence of organised groups of illicit mongers who professionally indulge in illicit cutting and removal of valuable trees of the forests (Chowdhury, 1994).

Most of the Sal forests are now severely degraded and poorly stocked. Some three decades ago, more than 60 percent of these forests were fairly densely wooded. But today, the forest has been reduced both in extent and tree density as well as stand quality. These are, in fact, the worst hit of all the forests in the country. FAO estimated that about 36 percent of the forest cover existed in 1985; more recent estimates (1990) suggest that only about 10 percent of the forest cover remains. Despite a moratorium imposed in 1972 on extraction of wood from Sal forests, illicit felling have continued unabated.

The Sundarbans Mangrove forests

The Sundarbans Reserve Forests composed of 0.58 million ha of area (greater Khulna and Bagerhat region) of which 0.41 million ha is mangrove forests and 0.17 million ha is open water areas in rivers, channels and creaks. The Sundarbans is the largest single tract mangrove formation in the world. The main species is Sundri (Heritiera spp) and other associated mangroves mainly species belongs to Rhizophorace family (Sonneratia spp., Excoecaria spp., Xylocarpus spp., Ceriops spp. etc.). The forest is fully controlled and managed by the Government Forest Department. This is legally declared as a Reserve Forest so there is no human habitation and locality inside the forest except some in the periphery. The Sundarbans constitute about 45 percent of the natural productive forests and provide livelihood for at least 0.5 million people mainly wood cutters, fisherman, honey collectors and Nypa palm leaf (fronds) locally known as Golpata collectors, Phoenix paludosa (hental) collectors, shell collectors and fishermen. Beside forest resources, the Sundarbans forest is extremely important for fish production, wildlife conservation, recreation and serves as a protective barrier against coastal erosion, cyclones, storms and tidal surges. The mangrove forests and mudflats of the Sundarbans provide the vital breeding and nursery grounds for a large proportion of the fin fish, crustaceans and molluscs. The significant depletion of the growing stock, notably of Heritiera (Sundri) and Excoecaria (Gewa) which appears to have been reduced by 40% and 45% respectively between 1959 and 1983. The incidence of top dying of Heritiera spp which seems to be increasing with rapid ecological changes rendering the site unsuitable for the species. The lack of experienced and trained staff, inadequate data base, accessibility are also the main problems to manage the forest properly.

The main reasons of the depletion of this forest are due to the corruption and negligence of the some Forest Department staffs, illegal traders, local influential leaders, some government officials concerned, section of police-man, section of local journalists etc. Often the local poor people are used to destroy the forests taking tolls (many times higher than government rate) from them illegally. Other reasons are improper and poor management, over exploitation and also ecological reasons to some extent. The construction of the Farraka barrage over the upstream of the Ganges by India in West Bengal, reduced the water flow significantly during dry season which increased the salt intrusion from the sea water and disturbed/changed/altered/modified the ecosystem. The causes of the 40% top-dying of the main species Sundri (Heretiera spp) is still partially known. The depletion of this mangrove forest should be stopped immediately due to its ecological significance. The conscious world should come forward to stop the further depletion of the mangroves in the Indian Subcontinent and to support the programme for its proper conservation. Recently, the Sundarbans mangrove forests has been declared as a world heritage site by the UNESCO. This would help and push the Government of Bangladesh to take necessary steps to protect and reserve this unique dynamic but fragile and complex ecosystem.

Consequences of forest destruction in Bangladesh

The major consequences of deforestation, at present Bangladesh is facing, seriously hamper the economy. The effects of uncontrolled logging is most destructive in the hilly areas. Because of that reason, land slides and soil erosion have increased significantly. Soil degradation in the plain lands due to the nutrient deficiency is common. Previous natural nutrient cycling from the forest to the plain arable lands has been destroyed by clearing the forest and afterwards using huge overdose of chemical fertilisers and uncontrolled use of the hazardous toxic pesticides. The dose of the chemical fertilizer application is increasing every year and at the end resulting in infertile, barren soil. Land degradation is accelerated by this process. The desertification was initiated a decade ago in the northern part of the country. A recent report shows that in the greater Pabna district 2 lakhs acres of land may be degraded or baren in next 20 years out of total arable land 9.5 lakh acres mainly for the erosions due to lack of vegetation or tree cover. There are many situations in other areas as well. The abnormal variation in diurnal temperature and seasonal weather than the past records indicate to be alarmed. The devastation after the cyclones and storms in exposed areas to the bay near the coastal lines is now more severe than the past. The situation is becoming worse as the time passes.

Remedies

In fact, there is a lot of scopes of forestry in Bangladesh. A comprehensive planning is required to utilise the Unclassed State Forest (USF) land (which is virtually barren and unproductive), marginal and waste land, homesteads, roadside lands and railway side, embankments, pond banks, canal and river banks, institutional premises etc. These lands can be planted with multipurpose tree species, which may be the significant alternative sources of forest produce and timbers. That can help to reduce the pressure on the natural forests. Despite the shortages of skilled forestry personnel, the Green-Belt project by the FD to restore the coastal lands are promising approach. Forestry graduates from universities of the country can be appointed to implement this type of program effectively.

The major causes are more or less the similar for the depletion of all the forest types. In some cases, all these causes are affecting and operating simultaneously making the situation worse. Without the firm commitment of the government to stop the forest depletion, probably no change will occur. In general, motivation, awareness creation among the general public, updating and enforcement of laws, employing trained, honest and efficient manpower equipped with forestry knowledge may be some remedial measures.

Public and private plantation programmes should be undertaken in the barren hilly areas and clear felled areas immediately. The most successful story of FD may be demonstrated like the Betagi Community Forestry model farm as in the hill forest areas of Chittagong. Landless labourers, farmers, encroachers, illicit loggers were selected and given about 2 hactares of land to each on lease basis. They were given also the loan initially for raising the tree plantations. Periodic repayment of loan was ensured. The income of the farmer had increased from US$70 to US$1600 per year after seven years of the practice, which has been shown in several studies. In similar fashion, the hill forest may be recovered again by selecting the individuals based on some well accepted criteria i.e., poverty, gender, regular loan repayment etc. Segments of the poor, destitute women, landless labourers, small co-operatives, medium entrepreneurs may be the target client groups.

Conservation is the only alternative measure remained for the rapidly dwindling small area of the Sal forest. Enforcement of the laws, forestry extension in the adjacent localities, motivation and campaign can stop further depletion of the forest.

For the mangrove forests very specific policy is required by the government. Enough control of the FD over the Sundarbans is still strong. This may be used for its proper management and conservation. Immediate steps should be taken to stop the over-exploitation of resources before complete deterioration of the administrative control of FD over the Sundarbans.

Conclusions

Forests are particularly important in the context of present environmental degradation and ecological purposes. The location of Bangladesh has made it prone to natural calamities like flood, draught, storms, cyclones and tidal upsurge. Though there is a controversy but according to the forecast of scientific community, the country will probably be the severely affected one by the green house effect, global warming and sea-level rise. Bangladesh needs world support to halt further deforestation and degradation of its small amount but very important valuable natural forests. There are very few alternatives to protect the environment except the conservation of forests and extension of forestry. The international bodies should formulate adequate plans before depletion of the all forests to conserve the forests, tropical forests in particular, around the whole world.

REFERENCES

BBS (1993) Statistical Pocketbook of Bangladesh. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Planning, Dhaka. 363p.

Chowdhury, R.A. (1994). History and importance of Sal forests and current management status. In: Agroforestry for the degraded Sal forest. eds. Chowdhury, R.A., Bhuiyan, A.A., Amin, S.M., Haque, A.K.M., Bose S.K. and M.I.M. Fattah. Procedings of the national workshop held at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, Dhaka on Nov 26 to Dec 01, 1994. BARC, FD and Asia Pacific Agroforestry Network, 09-25pp.

FAO (1993) Forest resources assessment 1990: Tropical countries. FAO Forestry Paper 112, Rome. 102p.

FAO (1995a) Forest resources assessment 1990: Global Synthesis. FAO Forestry Paper 124, Rome. 44p.

FAO (1995) Forest resources assessment 1990: Tropical forest plantation resources. FAO Forestry Paper 128, Rome. 81p.

GOB, (1993) Forestry Master Plan: Executive Summary. ADB, UNDP/FAO BGD/88/025, Forest Department, Government of Bangladesh, Dhaka. 31p.

Haque, M.N. (1995). Raising Plantations on Barren Hills. The Bangladesh Observer, Dhaka.

Copyright © 1998 Global Amitech

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