Wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

is the main

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy b ...

for cooking and other domestic requirements. It is not surprising that

population pressure Population pressure, a term summarizing the stress brought about by an excessive population density and its consequences, is used both in conjunction with human overpopulation and with other animal populations that suffer from too many individuals ...

has had an adverse effect on the indigenous

forests A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

. By 1980 only about 16 percent of the land was forested, and forests had all but

disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organi ...

from the densely populated and intensively cultivated deltaic plain. Aid organizations in the mid-1980s began looking into the possibility of stimulating small-scale forestry to restore a resource for which there was no affordable substitute.

Bangladesh Forest Research Institute Bangladesh Forest Research Institute (BFRI) is an institute for forestry research in Bangladesh, located at Sholashahar, Chattogram. History Bangladesh Forest Research Institute was established in 1955 as East Pakistan Forest Research Laborator ...

(BFRI) is the government organization under

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is an Indian government ministry. This ministry is headed by Secretary Rank senior most IAS officer. The ministry portfolio is currently held by Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister ...

for research in this sector which was established in 1955 at Sholoshahar,

Chittagong Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in ...

city. The largest areas of forest are in the

Chittagong Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts ( bn, পার্বত্য চট্টগ্রাম, Parbotto Chottogram), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, are group of districts within the Chittagong Division in southeast ...

and the

Sundarbans Sundarbans (pronounced ) is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly R ...

. The

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

and

deciduous forests In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

of the Chittagong Hills cover more than and are the source of

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters ( pan ...

for heavy construction and boat building, as well as other forest products. Domesticated

elephants Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...

are still used to haul logs. The Sundarbans, a tidal

mangrove forest Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fre ...

covering nearly along the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

, is the source of timber used for a variety of purposes, including pulp for the domestic

paper industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process The pulp is fed to a paper machine where it is formed as a paper web a ...

, poles for electric power distribution, and leaves for thatching for dwellings. The total percentage of forests are 10.98%.

Forestry universities

There are three universities in Bangladesh where a student can enroll for an undergraduate degree in forestry. Among them the

Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, CU (IFESCU) was established in 1976 as Institute of Forestry with the help of Ministry of Environment and Forest, and Bangladesh Forest Department, under University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. It ...

under

Chittagong University The University of Chittagong ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়, caṭṭagram bishwabidyalay) is a public research university with multidisciplinary faculties situated across a 1754-acres hilly landmas ...

offers undergraduate and graduate degrees both in Forestry and in Environmental Sciences. This is the premier institute for Forestry education in Bangladesh. The three universities of Bangladesh offering undergraduate and graduate degree in Forestry are:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forestry In Bangladesh Economy of Bangladesh