Learning Objectives: After completing this lesson students will be a) informed about the basic forest management system in Bangladesh b) informed about the categories of forests in Bangladesh c) learn about the points of improvement that can be considered in relation to the Forests Act, 1927

1. Protection of Biodiversity in
Bangladesh: Forests
Preeti Kana Sikder
Assistant Professor
Department of Law & Justice,
Jahangirnagar University

2. Regulating Legislations and Policy
Forests Act, 1927
Forest Policy, 1994
Social Forestry Rules, 2004
Private Forests Ordinance, 1959

3. History of the Forests Act

4. Department of Forests
Headed by a Chief Conservator of Forests and assisted by three Deputy
Chief Conservators

5. Management of Forests
 There are Six circles and each circle has
several forest divisions.
 There are 37 forest divisions throughout
the country
 Each forest division is divided into several
forest ranges.
 Each Forest Range is divided into Beats.

6. Management of Forests
 Each Forest Range is controlled by Forest
Range Officers
 Under each Forest Range Officer there are
Beat Officers of the rank of Forester/
Deputy Rangers

7. The Forests Act, 1927: The Basic Law Governing
Forests
 All rights or claims over forestlands have been settled
at the time of the reservation
 The Act prohibits the grant of any new rights of any
kind to individuals or communities
 Any activity within the forest reserves is prohibited,
unless permitted by the Forest Department
 Most of the violations may result in court cases where
the minimum fine is 2000Tk and/or two month’s
imprisonment

8. Categories of Forests?
Forests
Reserve
Village
Social
Forestry
Protected

9. Reserved Forests
 The Government may establish reserved forests on lands that it
owns, administratively adjudicating and possibly acquiring
competing legal claims to the land and preventing new claims in
accordance with the procedural mechanisms in accordance with
Ss: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 16A.
 To establish a reserved forest, the Government needs to publish
a declaration of the reservation in the Official Gazette with a
description of the forest’s boundaries, and to appoint a Forest
Settlement Officer (FSO).
 The Act also provides the scope of appeal to the Divisional
Commissioner against a decision passed by FSO, appointed for the
purpose of declaration of reserve forest.

10. Acts prohibited in reserve forests (Section 26)
 Kindling Fire
 Trespassing or
Pasturing Cattle
 Burning charcoal
 Removing forest
produce
 Establishing saw-pits
 Entering with fire
arms
 Making fresh clearing
 Felling trees
 Burning any tree or
striping off barks or leaves
 Attempting to cultivating
land
 Converting trees into
timbers

11. Protected Forests (Section 29)
 Government may declare any forest land or waste
land which is not included in a reserved forest,
but which is the property of Government, or over
which Government has proprietary rights to be
protected forests.
 The Government must inquire into and resolve
private rights before declaring so.

12. Village Forests (Section 28)
 Government may assign to any village community
the rights of Government to or over any land which
has been constituted as a reserved forest.
 All forests so assigned shall be called village
forests.

13. What is Social Forestry?
 According to Banglapedia, Social Forestry a forestry which
aims at ensuring economic, ecological, and social benefits to
the people, particularly to the rural masses and those living
below poverty line, specially by involving the beneficiaries
right from the planning stage to the harvesting stage.
 The target of the social forestry is the 'rural poor' and not
the 'tree' alone.
 This support, however, is not just to ensure that the trees
get planted and survive but rather to ensure that the people
who plant the trees receive adequate sustenance to live with
dignity before reaping the harvest from the raised crops.

14. Social Forestry
 It is an appealing land use strategy by local
poor landless community, and has been in
practice in Bangladesh for more than twenty
years.
 The efforts of all those year’s activities have
resulted in the emergence of Social Forestry as
a rural institution.
 It was included in the forest act through
amendment in 2000.

15. Stakeholders of Social Forestry
Encroacher or dwellers who depend on the
forest
Owner of the Land
Beneficiaries NGOs
Forest Dept
Other govt orgs
those are land
owners

16. Who is a beneficiary?
 Beneficiaries will be selected according to
the opinion of –
 Forest Department
 Local Government Representatives
 NGOs that are involved with Social
Forestry

17. Privilege in becoming beneficiaries
People living within one km of forest
Landless People
Owner of less than 50 decimal land
Destitute women
Tribal people of that area

18. Social Forestry (Section 28A) Standards for social forestry
agreements:
require agreements to include agreed upon management plant for the social
forestry programme;
 guarantee participants an equitable share of proceeds in return for labour
invested;
 in case of agreements contemplating timber harvest, require the duration
of agreements to include the expected principal harvest;
 allow transfer of benefits and obligations under agreements between
spouses
 allow creation and dissolution of management committees representing
participants
 allow persons to petition the Government for ‘undertaking’ social forestry
programme

19. Arif Jamil, REVISITING THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF
FOREST MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES IN
BANGLADESH
Vol 18, No 2 (2007)
Dhaka University Law Journal ISSN: 1813-5099
Protection of Forests in Bangladesh

20. Your Task

21. Non Bailable Forest Offences (Sec. 63A)
Sec. 26, sub sec. 1A
Sec. 33, sub sec. 1A
Sec. 63 (Penalty for counterfeiting
or defacing marks on trees and
timber and for altering boundary
marks)