Wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

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 (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...

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 ecosystem characterized by a dense community of 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 functio ...

. 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 with the support or acquiescence of a state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the intent of placing ...

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 (BFRI) is the government organization under

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is an Government of India, Indian government Ministry (government department), ministry. The ministry Portfolio (government), portfolio is currently held by Bhupender Yadav, Union ...

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

Chittagong Chittagong ( ), officially Chattogram, (, ) (, or ) is the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Home to the Port of Chittagong, it is the busiest port in Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. The city is also the business capital of Bangladesh. It ...

city. The largest areas of forest are in the

Chittagong Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts (), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, refers to the three hilly districts within the Chittagong Division in southeastern Bangladesh, bordering India and Myanmar (Burma) in the east: Kh ...

and the

Sundarbans Sundarbans (; pronounced ) is a mangrove forest area in the Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal ...

. The

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

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, after flo ...

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 (panic ...

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

elephants Elephants are the Largest and heaviest animals, largest living land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant (''Loxodonta africana''), the African forest elephant (''L. cyclotis''), and the Asian ele ...

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 mangrove trees cannot withsta ...

covering nearly along the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

, 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, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process In the manufacturing process, pulp is intro ...

, 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 () also known as Chittagong University (CU), is a public research university located in Chittagong, Bangladesh. It was established on 18 November 1966. It is the fifth oldest university of Bangladesh. Having an area ...

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