Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a tropical country. It is a rural-based developing country that lies in the northeastern part of South Asia between 20034’ East longitude. The country is bounded by India on the West, the North and Northeast, Myanmar on the Southeast and the Bay of Bengal on the South (Anon, 2003). The percentage of forest cover in relation to total land area is 10.2%; forest plantations were 625,000 ha in 2000(FAO, 2005). The area of forestland is 2.53 million ha which is 17.5% of the country’s total area (Roy, 2004). Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) manages 1.53 million hectares of forestland (Roy, 2004). The natural forests of Bangladesh are considered as one of the richest and biologically diverse forest resources due to its unique geo-physical location (Hossain, 2001). About 5000 plant species are estimated to occur here (Sattar, 1998). The forest cover, flora and fauna, and a smoothing natural environment are mingled with our tradition. Different regions of Bangladesh manifest different natural heritage. In the southwestern region of the country there lies the great forest of Sundarbans, the Sal forest in the middle and the evergreen hill forests in the southeast. A great variation in flora and fauna develops different and distinct ecosystems in the forests of Bangladesh. Carbon dioxide is the major one of the greenhouse gases believed to be precipitating global warming. Carbon releases from land-use change may also contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon, e.g., through carbon releases associated with the conversion of forestland to cropland. However, land-use changes are generally believed to be a secondary source of net carbon being released into the atmosphere (Bolin et al. 1996). It is estimated that over the last 10,000 years, 20–40% of ecosystem biomass has been lost as a result of human interventions. This suggests an upper limit of the sequestration potential is in the order of 600—1,200 billion tons (Gts) of carbon (Watson et al. 2000). Although this is an overestimate of the feasible sequestration potential, it does suggest that there is substantial sequestration potential using forestry. Early studies determined that the potential volume of carbon that could be stored in expanded forest ecosystems was substantial relative to the net volume of carbon being released into the atmosphere (Marland 1988; Sedjo and Solomon 1989). The potentials of forestry are intriguing. Although sequestration through forestry does have limitations, it is generally agreed that large amounts of carbon could be sequestered utilizing existing technology (IPCC 2001).

1.1. GENERAL INFORMATION ON BANGLADESH

Bangladesh is a developing country in South Asia located between 20°34’ to 26°38’ north latitude and 88°01’ to 92°42’ east longitude, with an area of 147,570 sq km. It has a population of about 128 million, with a very low per capita Gross National Product (GNP) of US$ 370 (WB, 2000). It has a border on the west, north, and east with India, on the southeast with Myanmar, and the Bay of Bengal is to the south. Geologically, Bangladesh is a part of the Bengal Basin, one of the largest geosynclinals in the world. The formation and growth of the Bengal Basin is directly related to the origin and morphology of the Indo-Gangetic trough, which itself is overlaid and filled by sediments thousands of metres thick (Rahman et al., 1994). The floor of the Bengal Basin consists of quaternary sediments deposited by the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna rivers, known together as the GBM river system, and their numerous tributaries and distributaries. Over 92 per cent of the annual runoff generated in the GBM catchment area flows through Bangladesh, although it comprises only about 7 per cent of the total catchment (Coleman, 1969). The whole country consists of mainly low and flat land, except for the hilly regions in the northeast and southeast. A network of rivers, with their tributaries and distributaries, crisscross the country. Physiographically the country can be divided into hills, uplifted land blocks, and the majority alluvial plains with very low mean elevation above sea level (Rashid 1991). The physical environment of Bangladesh is diverse, and there is a mix of both traditional and modern methods of land use (Table 1), all very closely adapted to the heterogeneous conditions.