Half century of protected area dynamism in the country of Gross National Happiness, Bhutan

Effects of Land-Related Policies on Deforestation in a Protected Area: The Case Study of Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh

In protected areas (PAs) in Bangladesh, as policies shift from net deforestation, conservation initiatives and various management plans have been implemented to reduce deforestation and include public participation at multiple levels. However, the interactive effect of land-related policies on deforestation in PAs is poorly understood. In this study, land-use change analysis using geographic information system data was performed to investigate how policies affected land use and land cover change in Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary (RKWS), particularly the National Forest Policy (1979~), National Land Policy (2001~), and Agricultural Land Policy (1999~), using a series of Landsat images captured at different times. Our analyses showed that the total forest area increased in the 1994–2005 period when a plantation program was implemented, and also that many forest areas were replaced with noncommercial agricultural land areas in the 2005–2013 and 2013–2018 periods, when land zoning and co-management programs were implemented under different land-related policies. Commercial and non-commercial agricultural land expansions were the main drivers of deforestation, suggesting that several programs under the different land-related policies could have had synergetic effects on deforestation even in PAs. Our findings emphasize the importance of considering the undesirable effects of land-related policies in Pas, and the need to support the community for forest conservation.