Abstract
Because of illegal logging, increased population pressure and intensified shifting cultivation, forest coverage of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) has decreased drastically resulting in land degradation. Many development projects have been implemented to combat forest loss and land degradation and also to improve the livelihoods of the hill people. This paper reports an empirical study of the Upland Settlement Project (USP) of Bangladesh which was undertaken to prevent land degradation and enhance the standard of living of the people. Planters were found to have given up shifting cultivation and adopted soil conserving agroforestry practices, and forest coverage has been increased in the project village. Interacting with project staff members, government officials and NGOs assisted planters in diversifying livelihood strategies thereby reducing dependency on project resources. Rich planters, utilizing their own capacity, expanded their income sources successfully. Poor planters still remain wage labourers because they do not have sufficient finance and networks to invest in productive ventures. Planters’ participation in project activities and the information flow between them and project staff were found to be minimal. Suggestions are made for the continuity of project functions, which involve greater participation of planters in rubber management functions, improved information flow, resolution of land tenure and greater equality in distribution of rubber revenue.
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Notes
For example, the project authority introduced intercrops in an early stage of rubber plantations during the second phase of USP.
This approach is consistent with recommendations made by Prokopy (2005).
Initially, houses (bamboo matt wall with tin roof) of all planters were constructed by the project. After a few years, many planters renovated their houses, and some built new houses with brick and mud walls and high quality tin (galvanized iron) sheets.
For wealth ranking, a list of all household was prepared, with a separate card number with the name of household head for each household. All cards were then ranked by the key informants independently, based on criteria each chose following their discussion. Finally, three wealth groups—labelled rich, middle and poor—were identified.
The check-list for semi-structured interviews included human and physical capital (including family size, education, members contributing cash income, landholdings and ownership, livestock, housing conditions and household appliances), natural capital (including agroforestry system and its components, forest conditions), financial capital (including credit, and food security status), governance issues including participation, and equity in access to various benefits (including employment and information flow), and social capital (including groups and networks, trust and solidarity, collective actions, information and communications, social cohesion and inclusion, and empowerment).
Vector scoring is a visual method and involves scoring of items for assessing their relative importance so as to prioritise problems. This method helps in decision-support by prioritizing concerned items.
In seasonal diagramming, villagers can show by diagrams and charts the seasonal variations in different aspects of rural livelihood including availability of food and employment. The chart thus formed could be linked directly to policy measures in terms of problems identified during the exercise.
Marma ethnic group is dominant in the Bandarban hill district as well as in USP villages in Bandarban.
From May to August 2005, rubber production was four tonnes of RSS (Ribbed Smoked Sheets) from 81 ha of rubber plantation, with a market value of about Tk.360,000. The project manager claimed that this production was satisfactory, even though it was experimental using a hand-driven machine for preparing rubber sheets from latex. Future production is expected to be greater (Chakma 2005).
Ngugi and Nyariki (2005) mentioned the significance of education for improving livelihood, and stated that poverty is closely associated with low levels of education and lack of skills.
The project village committee has a common fund deposited in a bank account. At the time of joining, each planter contributed Tk.500 to the common fund and another Tk.20,000 from leasing of gudha. This fund is utilized for the welfare of the planters and common development. For example, if any planter needs money in case of an emergency situation such as expensive medical treatment, the committee provides an interest free loan for a specified time. Tk.12,000 from this common fund was also spent on the repair of the gudha.
The project authority built an earthen cross dam (90 m long and 30 m wide) between the bases of two adjacent hills that holds water all year.
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Acknowledgments
Field work for this research was supported by the 21st Century Centre of Excellence (COE) program of the University of Tokyo, headed by Professor Washitani Izumi. The authors would like to thank the planters of the USP and the CHTDB personnel for their generous help in conducting field work. Special gratitude is extended to Steve Harrison for his repeated comments on improving the paper. The authors also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
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Nath, T.K., Inoue, M. The Upland Settlement Project of Bangladesh as a Means of Reducing Land Degradation and Improving Rural Livelihoods. Small-scale Forestry 7, 163–182 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-008-9048-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-008-9048-0