Community Dependency and Conservation Practices in Khagrachari, Bangladesh: A Study on Management of Village Common Forests (VCFs)

Forest is one of the main sources of different resources where indigenous communities are mostly dependent on the forest for their sustainable management of life. Following the dependency of indigenous communities on natural resources and their conservation practices and development of Village Common Forest (VCF) in Chittagong hill tracts. Present study was conducted at Haduk Para and Hridoy Member Para VCF’s in Khagrachari, Bangladesh to understand the dependency and practices of villagers on the VCF for their livelihood and other resources. Among different types of products extracted from Haduk Para and Hridoy Member Para, the monetary value was highest (14700 BDT and 22400 BDT, respectively) for timber but fuelwood is the most extracted product (1930 Kg HH-1Yr-1 and 2470 Kg HH-1Yr-1, respectively) they have collected from VCF. Besides, to fulfill daily personal needs different plant edible products, fauna, and medicinal plants have been collected by the community people from both VCFs. In case of conservation purpose, Hridoy Member Para giving more priority for protecting the source of water resources where the majority from Haduk Para community replied that their priority was to avert natural calamities. However, both the VCFs community have taken some initiatives to reduce the pressure from the forest floor like enrichment planting, non-wood forest products cultivation, regional training for handicraft manufacturing and alternative income generation activities for the villagers. Therefore, safeguarding forest and biodiversity resources and at the same time improving the livelihood security for the indigenous communities, nowadays is mandatory to protect and manage these VCFs from being degraded.