An interview with S.A. Mahmoud, Secretary of Agriculture and Forests Divisions, Bangladesh
Farhana Haque Rahman conducted this interview for Unasylva in July 1985 in Bangladesh. Now a freelance journalist based in Rome, she was formerly the principal English-language newsreader and commentator for Bangladesh national radio and television.
· Bangladesh has a land area of about 134 000 km2, of which about 10 percent is under some form of management by the Forestry Department. An additional 6.7 percent is unclassified state forest or khas (government-owned) forest. The forests under Forestry Department control are of three types: hill forests, composed of tropical evergreens and semi-evergreens; the Sundarban forest, consisting of tidal mangrove and inland shal (Shorea robusta) forests; and small shal wood-lots surrounded by farms.
Forests supply 2 percent of the GNP and 72 percent of the country's energy consumption. Approximately 80 percent of all forest products are used for fuel, and between 50 and 70 percent of these come from village homestead wood-lots.
At Partition in 1947, the region that is now Bangladesh inherited what has been described as "the most neglected forests in the subcontinent. There existed only 4 000-4 800 ha of plantations, mostly teak; by 1982 there were 160 000 ha with another 160 000 ha projected in the second five-year plan (1979-84)
Structurally, Bangladesh's Forestry Department is under the Ministry of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture and Forests Division. It is headed by a Chief Conservator of Forests who directs a staff of 275 professionals and over 4 000 paraprofessionals.
Unasylva: Bangladesh is just starting its third five-year plan, for the years 1985 to 1990. What are the primary goals and objectives for forestry?
Mr Mahmoud: Our main emphasis is on rural forestation programmes, although our efforts in conventional forests and in industrial forest management will continue. In Bangladesh today, approximately 80 percent of our total forest resources -timber, firewood and other biomass -come from homestead- and rural-level forests and 20 percent from conventional forests. But there has been a very serious depletion of rural forest resources because of demand for fuelwood and construction materials and because of pressures at the homestead level.
One has to understand that Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. In rural Bangladesh a generation ago there was only one family per homestead; now we have half a dozen families living together on a single homestead. And because of that pressure, trees and other forest specimens have declined. We are finding that in most areas, particularly in north Bangladesh and Rajshahi district, almost semi-desert conditions have been created. This is affecting soil-water availability and is bringing about a change in the total ecosystem.
Can Bangladesh afford to have any land that is suitable for agriculture held for forests?
No, I don't think so. Forests cannot compete with any agricultural crops, because land is such a scarce resource.
With land at such a premium, what are the prospects for increasing forested areas?
Well, we have first a large area of land on roadsides and along embankments which is not normally used for agricultural purposes. This provides us with an even more suitable situation for forestation than at the homestead level. It is a question of selecting certain species which can thrive and from which the people can derive a direct benefit.
Then we have some pockets of government khas land which are not used for agriculture. Here we can develop community-forestry-type projects. We are developing a mechanism whereby the benefits will be shared with the local community who will be looking after the forests once they are established. There is some scope for considerable expansion of forestry without in any way adversely affecting agricultural production.
To what extent is encroachment on forest reserves a problem, and what steps have been taken to minimize it?
Encroachment on forest reserves has been a continuing problem for a very long time. In fact, during the Pakistan period, when General Azam Khan was Governor, he set up an inquiry commission, of which I was a member, to look into the encroachment problem. The conventional management approach which we had adopted from the British system had become outdated; we did not take care to modify it to make it more people-oriented. We had a rigid policing system which did not permit people to take advantage of the forest land, and this resulted in encroachment. However, it is quite possible to minimize this conflict through selection of appropriate species and allowing intercropping on forest land. Food or cash crops can be grown, if people are permitted to do it, without damaging the forest. But that sort of approach was not even visualized in those days.
Now we are trying to change that situation. We are trying to make even our conventional forestry more people-oriented. Say, for instance, that we find large numbers of homesteaders who, because of the high population density, are shifting into forested areas. If we try to evict them, we are creating a human problem. But if we accommodate them within the forest system, give them employment in our forest programmes and also provide them with alternative uses of the forest land, they will have a direct interest in conserving the forests rather than in destroying them.
PREPARING FIREWOOD FOR SALE many people, few forests (CHRISTENSEN)
The loss of forest resources through natural disasters, soil erosion and human misuse is a worldwide concern. What are the main forest depletion factors in Bangladesh, and to what extent can they be controlled or corrected?
The main factor is indiscriminate destruction in the name of exploitation. Here also the system we had been following in the past is responsible. Formerly, a forest lot would be auctioned out to a rich man who would then employ labour on a wage basis, mostly local poor people, in order to make the biggest possible profit on his investment. Such people have been responsible for much of the depletion through various corrupt practices. Forest lots are no longer auctioned in this way.
Another major factor has been slash-and-burn-type shifting agriculture, which occurs in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. This is one of our largest forest land masses, more than 2 000 km2. Here the forest was divided into two classes, one conventional or "reserve" forest directly under the Forestry Department, and the other - the bulk of it - unclassified state forest where no plantation programme was undertaken during the British period or later. Tribal people have practiced shifting cultivation in this unclassified state forest and, without appropriate management, the hill slopes have remained barren, uncovered by new plantations. The result is serious soil erosion which has caused problems of maintenance, even in our Chittagong Harbour.
What steps are now being taken?
Formerly, under the Hill Tracts Manual, title to land in unclassified state forests was never recognized. As a result, individuals from the private sector did not make long-term horticultural investments. The tenurial system has now been changed; we are creating titles to land, and it is being given to families along with financial and technological support.
One of the recommendations of the second five-year plan was to replace the slow-growing sal in the inland forests with fast-growing fuelwood species. To what extent has this been done, and what have been the chief factors that have influenced, positively or negatively, its implementation?
Now here is a very tricky area. We sometimes have a tendency to accept certain recommendations by certain expatriate experts who are not really fully conversant with our situation. The sal forests are the natural forests of the red-clay areas of Dhaka and Mymensingh, and they also used to extend to the Lalmai Hill areas, Comilla district and the Barin Tract of north Bengal. In these areas the forest fire risk is very high. Although the expatriate experts recommended that we start eucalyptus plantations here, I personally, as Secretary of Agriculture and Forests Division, have turned this down. The moment I have a eucalyptus forest I have a tremendous fire hazard, because eucalyptus is a highly resinous species. This whole investment would be risky and would jeopardize other investments in the area.
This is my first objection. My second is that eucalyptus has a very serious draw-down effect on subsoil moisture. As a result, nothing else can grow underneath, so there is no possibility for agroforestry. Sal is a very good timber, so we cannot discard it. Therefore, we are trying to regenerate sat together with a mix of quick-growing timber. Eucalyptus will be used, but not exclusively.
How successful have efforts been to educate rural people as to the importance of forests and good forestry practices?
In many of the areas, quite successful. In the community forest projects in some of the northwestern districts, where semi-desert conditions prevail, we have found good cooperation from the people. But it is not only a matter of trying to motivate people. Because people in Bangladesh are poor, they are especially interested in seeing what immediate and long-term returns they can expect form forestry activities in their area.
Forests supply approximately 70 percent of Bangladesh's current energy consumption. Given your limited forest resources, what efforts are being made to develop alternative energy sources?
The appropriate person to answer this fully would be the Secretary of the Energy Division. In any case, research is going on in our Division, in the Rural Development and Cooperatives Division, and at the Institute of Appropriate Technology located in the engineering university. On our side, we have been trying to introduce biogas technology into rural Bangladesh. Here we have limitations because although the technology is not new - even when I was a schoolboy I knew about biogas - making it commercially viable at the farmer's level is difficult. An individual family cannot afford the initial investment. Through collective community action it is possible to provide cheaper sources of energy from the same material, but here the main problem is organizing the community.
PINEAPPLES ON BANGLADESH HILLSIDE as much tend as possible for food (FAO)
COLOMBIA: MANGROVES DEAD FROM SALINITY Bangladesh seeking to avoid a similar fate (H. NULL/FAO)
We have also been experimenting with solar energy. During the monsoon season, however, when the energy requirement is high, solar energy is not readily available. So this is a handicap. We are also thinking of using windmills in some areas, but here again we find that under our conditions the economic or commercial viability of such projects is yet to be proven. As you are aware, even the more advanced countries have yet to come up with any clear solutions.
The Sundarban Mangrove Forest, which comprises at least 50 percent of Bangladesh's total forested area, is the largest of its kind in the world and a vital national resource. It not only supplies wood but also serves as an essential buffer against cyclones and tidal bore; it provides a refuge for rare species of wildlife; it produces basic nutrients for coastal sea-life; and it is a potential tourist attraction. Could you tell us something about its management?
Yes, Sundarban is a very unique forest which in the past was managed merely as a natural forest. Over the last two or three decades certain ecological changes were taking place. As a result, we found that the harvesting schedule which had been developed almost a hundred years back was no longer workable: that schedule was based on certain factors which had, in fact, changed. The Farraka Barrage in India which diverts Ganges River water helped raise the salinity level, and this affected the regeneration process of certain species like sundri. Now we have begun a plantation programme to compensate.
We are also trying to expand it. In 1961, after the devastating 1960 cyclone, the first project was started for coastal forestation in the vast area beyond Sundarban. There, new land is being formed by silt. During the cyclone, areas which were covered by Sundarban forests were safe; there was little loss of life or property. In the remaining areas, however, it was pure havoc. People died by the thousand in the tidal bore.
PART OF THE SUNDARBAN MANGROVES a country where water is dominant (CHRISTENSEN)
In 1961, there was only one objective - to create a wind-break to protect the embankments; in 1974 this was revised. Land reclamation became another major objective. So we have been experimenting with different species to find which will be the most suitable in helping the newly formed unstable land mass to stabilize. We started the first phase of the project under World Bank assistance and now we are going to the second phase. Taking into account the lack of research backing, it has been quite a successful experiment. We expect that we will be adequately covering the total coastal area in the coming decade.
Could you describe the techniques used in developing accreted lands in the Sundarban?
We are trying to duplicate what nature does. The silt carried by the river systems, the Ganges and Brahmaputra, is deposited and land accretion takes place. This land has to be held by vegetation. We have found through our studies that the first primary colonizer is a variety of highly salt-tolerant grass called uri grass. Seeds of uri grass float on water, move with the tide and find their natural entering places. Since uri grass is a dense growth, it assists in the accumulation of more silt, which in turn starts to stabilize the land.
Actually the Sundarban Forest has been expanding to the south for centuries, automatically, because the seeds of most of the mangrove species also float on the salt water. When they come across an area already colonized by uri grass, they get stuck in the grass and take root there. This is how the mangrove forest expands. We are now using this technology ourselves in propagating different species in those newly accreted lands which are separated by tidal currents. The seeds are there, floating about, but they cannot move west to east across the current barrier. So what we have to do is simply compensate for this, and this is what we have started to do..
