Forest crisis and wildlife conservation
The IUCN Regional Conservation Forum being held (10-14 Sept) in Nepal brings together conservation experts from across Asia to talk about Protected Areas and biodiversity. In Bangladesh, as the forest cover has fallen in recent decades, the quality and health of our system of Protected Areas -- created initially as refuges for wildlife -- has suffered even more grievously. In this writeup, Ishtiaq U Ahmad and Philip J DeCosse identify the evolving challenges to conservation and propose a practical roadmap for harmonizing national wildlife conservation needs with the aspirations of rural populations living in and around Protected Areas.
Since the creation of the Forest Department's first Wildlife Circle in the mid-1970s, wildlife conservation issues have received less attention than plantation forestry and traditional silvicultural practices. From the perspective of the typical Range or Beat Officer in the field and this is often said by staff “there is nothing to do in a Protected Area” (those areas designated under the Wildlife Act 1974).
As trees fall and forests are thinned, wildlife disappears. The total number of Hoolock Gibbon our only ape species will soon be in double digits in the wild. Flagship species such as the Asian Elephant and the Bengal Tiger are in similar states of crisis, as are hundreds of lesser known species of cats, birds, butterflies and plants, to name a few.
How has this neglect of our once pristine Protected Areas and the consequent loss of biodiversity come to pass?
Challenges
The Forest Department has faced a number of challenges. The Wildlife Act allows for little involvement of local communities in conservation of Protected Areas, leaving Forest staff to conclude that their principal role is to keep everyone out of the Areas, and to arrest and or prosecute those who do enter. Because there is no plantation work to be done in a Protected Area, budgets for management of the areas have been much smaller than other Reserve Forests. In the absence of any Protected Area Management Plans or any systematic wildlife management training -- local Forest staff have focused almost exclusively on the goal of “keeping people out”. In those Protected Areas where staff and other local or national powerful interests have been less than honest, Protected Areas have provided an ideal venue for theft of logs, fuel wood, and establishment of brick fields or other encroachment of lands.
The reigning de facto fiscal policy of recent decades namely, that forests are to provide an important contributor to the Government's annual revenue -- has also adversely affected wildlife. Forest Officials under pressure to meet annual revenue targets set by the Government have naturally paid less attention to the Protected Areas, from which only scant revenue from visitation has been generated.
Consider the challenges of managing the forest impact of the brick burning sector alone. A single brick field makes on average 2.4 million bricks a year, and this requires 1,000 tons of fuel wood, or the equivalent of 40,000 head loads of wood from the forest. Although the Brick Burning Control Act explicitly prohibits brick fields within 3 km of any Protected Area or Reserve Forest, many brick fields have situated themselves directly adjacent to Protected Areas because they can extract “free” wood fuel and clay. At one Protected Area in the south of the country, 15 brick fields have situated themselves either directly inside or immediately adjacent to the forest. In a single year, this number of brick fields will require 600,000 head loads of fuel from the forest to operate. Addressing this sort of threat to Protected Areas requires an approach fundamentally different than the exclusionary approach included in the Wildlife Act.
Eco-parks and nature recreation
In the past decade, the Government has responded to the loss of natural areas primarily by fencing of small subsections of the larger Protected Areas and designating them as Eco-Parks or Safari Parks, with the principle objective of nature recreation. These recreation areas six of which are now in operation -- provided an opportunity for 800,000 paying visitors in the last year alone to have a taste of nature. Many of those that have visited these areas have never seen wild animals before, nor walked through a forest.
In providing a nature experience for these hundreds of thousands of citizens, the Forest Department has provided an important service to the nation.
Participation, livelihoods and conservation
Eco-Parks and Safari Parks, however, are not a sufficient response to the need for wildlife conservation nor to the needs of local populations that have depended on the forests. That can only be addressed through protection and regeneration of larger natural ecosystems and the participation of local stakeholders.
To this end, the Forest Department has recently taken important steps in setting a new strategy and approach for Protected Areas management, based on the now-accepted ideas of participation, rights and benefits.
Under the Department's Nishorgo Program for Protected Area Management, collaborative management Councils have been established for pilot Protected Areas and local stakeholders are taking part as “co-managers” of the Protected Areas with the Forest Department.
Today, this Nishorgo approach is being followed at five pilot Protected Areas and is now being extended to other areas. The work of Nishorgo parallels similar collaborative Protected Area management efforts undertaken in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, not to mention Europe and the US. Promising results are emerging, both in reduction of conflict and in forest conservation.
Practical steps for moving ahead
Participation, rights and benefits-sharing form the three core values on which the Department can consolidate and expand improved wildlife management, but a number of other actions should follow.
In their assessment of Forest Department's institutional capacity for wildlife management in 2004, Drs. Khairul Alam and Art Mitchell recommended that more senior officers be given direct responsibility for managing individual Protected Areas, not least because of the complex socio-economic challenges faced at the PA level. The role and authorities of Assistant Conservators of Forest (ACFs) in particular need to be enhanced at the level of Protected Areas.
If local communities are to become active supporters of conservation, they must see livelihood benefits. Entry fees to Protected Areas where they are charged now are channeled directly back to the central government, without any benefit to the local communities. Entry fees should be charged at all Protected Areas where Co-Management Committees are active, and those Committees working to conserver the areas should receive compensation in the form of a proportion of these entry fees and other fees generated by the Areas.
More extensive investment in modern Protected Area management training approaches needs attention. Currently, there exist no Master's or even Diploma programs in “Protected Area Management” in Bangladesh. Systematic re-training of field and central staff in modern participatory wildlife management can be gainfully undertaken at the Forest Academy.
The Wildlife Act and a new Wildlife Policy have been in re-drafting stages for some time, but work remains to be done to integrate the two documents so as to present a forward-looking roadmap consistent with international norms and current best practices in Bangladesh. The two documents would benefit in particular from explicit inclusion of the following important concepts: collaborative management; stakeholder benefits sharing; respect for minority or indigenous rights; restrictions on select activities within defined landscapes; community-conserved areas; and, prior consultation before creation of new Protected Areas.
The Wildlife Advisory Board established under the Wildlife Act has not been as strategic as it could be. In recent years, it has been pressed to meet and discuss issues such as zoo permits and crocodile importation that might be addressed elsewhere. It would be timely for the Board to constitute a technical “Scientific Advisory Sub-Committee” of active and eminent wildlife-related researchers that would provide both advice and oversight to the wildlife work of the Forest Department and to the activities of the newly created Co-Management Councils.
There is no shortage of nature-lovers in Bangladesh, but these individuals have not yet coalesced as advocates for conservation of a unified system of Protected Areas. When land at Bhawal National Park is encroached or brick fields destroy Teknaf Game Reserve, civil society has been largely silent. Without an active constituency in support of Protected Area conservation, our flagship species will soon be gone, and lesser known species will follow behind. It would be timely now for a grassroots network of “Friends of the Protected Areas” to emerge.
The Forest Department working with local Co-Management Councils possess the skills and vision to turn the tide on rapid wildlife habitat loss we face. The policy and institutional changes identified here can help ensure that the Department achieves its Nishorgo vision of “Saving Nature for Future Generations”.
Ishtiaq U. Ahmad is the Conservator of Forests for Wildlife at the Forest Department. Philip J. DeCosse is Chief-of-Party of the Forest Department's Nishorgo Support Project.
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