It is common knowledge in Bangladesh that our forests have been decimated in recent decades. Less apparent than the loss of forests is the loss of other goods and services that forests provide particularly to the neighbouring poor people whose well being and livelihoods depend on these forests. Rural homesteads all over the country have vastly increased tree production in recent decades, but according to knowledgeable people the collective production of households will never be enough to meet the energy or construction needs of a fast growing population. Commercial fuel wood sellers hire the poor to comb through existing Reserve Forests and Protected Areas to extract whatever they can for sale. Brick-fields are constructed inside or next to Reserve Forests to use wood as a primary energy source. Disappearance of mature commercial timber is as serious as the wood supply situation. Need for commercial timber for construction of homes and boats will continue to increase and prices too will increase over time. Timber fellers will more aggressively comb wood from National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries to meet demand, further endangering the already fragile bio-diversity in the country. The problem of over-extraction has been accentuated by land-grabbers, often with powerful political protection and bureaucratic support. The deep forests of Bhawal have now been legally titled for factories, homestead and other private uses. Other forests have met with similar fate in varying degrees. I understand from experts and concerned persons that as of now, many of our forests are already "dead", meaning that there are no saplings in the lower and middle story to replace them when the older trees die. The following is a "short list" of actions that are most urgent and necessary if we are to recover the healthy and productive forests that we once had. Enable poor communities to invest in forest protection and benefits Today, throughout Bangladesh, poor communities would leap at the chance to protect nearby degraded forest, but the Forest Department is required by current law to keep them from doing so. In Reserve Forests, there exists no viable policy or procedure by which the local poor can invest their time or capital in protecting and restoring forests and expect to have any benefit in return. The social forestry model has been successful so far but the expansion is restricted by the fact that all investment must come from government. Obviously, a cash starved government cannot allocate the required money for this in the face of competing demands. Nepal has addressed this issue with community forestry laws. India's Joint Forest Management does not require the heavy government capital investment and control as is the case in Bangladesh. The poor need a clear opportunity to invest their time and energy in protecting forests in ways that benefit them. A model needs to be adapted that can feasibly cover all the barren areas of the country. We could develop a community forestry process for Reserve Forest and Khas lands, or we could modify the Social Forestry Rules to allow a "formula" that does not require government investment (and does not demand a share in benefit either) in the greater interest of the country and its economy. Enable private investment in commercial timber production Across many sectors, the government has divested itself of failed monopoly businesses, but not in commercial forestry. It is time the Forest Department structures transparent and fair concessions under which timber companies would invest their own money and management experience rather to raise commercial plantations. Without immediate investment in commercial timber plantations, our wildlife spaces will be decimated to meet the timber needs of today and tomorrow. Allow forest benefits to be kept by beneficiaries at the time of transaction In spite of its shortcomings, social forestry has been one of the great successes in the past two decades because holders of social forestry certificates receive the benefits of their timber immediately after felling and auction. The 45 per cent share of standard social forestry agreements goes directly to beneficiaries. This general principle needs to be extended throughout the forest sector, to other types of forestry (such as community forestry adaptations) and to Protected Areas. The assumption of those that oppose the local retention in social forestry is that any value generated on government land belongs only to the government and must be centrally collected by it and only then a share can be returned through the budgetary process to comply with the concept of a consolidated fund of the government where all revenues must go. Donors by continuously pressing the government to increase the size of its kitty are compounding the problem. While the need for more revenues cannot be denied, it has to be done by increased collection of direct taxes. Conserving forests requires local participation and benefits sharing and if all produce of value (fees, timber, etc) are to be monetized and entered into the government fiscal accounts, then it will never be sustainable to have local participation through benefits sharing. This problem has become apparent for Protected Areas (National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries and Game Reserves). In some of the Protected Areas, community members are patrolling the forests day and night to protect them. It stands to reason that at source retention of an agreed portion of the generated fees from activities should be allowed to pay for the services provided by the patrollers. These patrollers come from very poor families who need the cash on a daily basis for their very survival. The system of retention of the fees at source is not in place even today. Real incentives need to be offered to communities to protect forests and wildlife throughout the country. Communities can be active protectors of forests, but they must see the benefits for their survival immediately. When all money's go into the government exchequer people lose interest since they firmly believe the system will cheat and deprive them. Publicly end the revenue targets implicitly handed to the forest department As things stand now, the Forest Department has annual revenue targets to meet. It spends considerable time and energy to meet revenue generation targets set for it by the Ministry of Finance. This is a legacy of the colonial administration that needs to be changed. The prime responsibility of the Forest Department should be to protect the forests and to enhance the forest cover in the greater interest of the environment since climate change puts a much greater strain on the country and its economy through crop failures and natural disasters. Tree cover is the best protection against climate change. This does not mean the department shall not generate revenue from various activities relating to the forests. The emphasis should shift from revenue to forest cover. Pushing the Forest Department to squeeze more revenue out of forests with forest cover in such severe decline is detrimental to the health of the country. The nation incurs a much higher cost to meet the adverse effects of climate change than what it earns as revenue from the forestry sector. Quantify and communicate the enormous non-cash economic contributions of forests Two months ago, the World Bank proposed USD 2 billion to reinforce our coastal zone against future cyclones and sea level rise. Anyone can see that the standing forests of the Sundarbans eliminate the need for protective works at such enormous costs. It would be madness to cut down the Sundari trees in the Sundarbans to meet the annual revenue targets set for the Forest Department. But the message from the budgetary system is that we should Some efforts are being made in Bangladesh in raising coastal forests as departmental activity with government investments but a lot more can be done by involving the local people who will benefit most from protecting and nurturing these forests. We have not allocated sufficient importance to the enormous economic value of coastal forests for protection against sea level rise and storm surges. Nor have we given due importance to other non-cash values for forests such as regulating the flow of water into our wetlands. The forests covering hills surrounding the Sylhet Division regulate water flow into the beels and haors of that area, ensuring longer and more productive fishery seasons. Flash flood and earlier-than-normal drying of beels occur more frequently when upland forests have been cut down. But pressure to generate revenue and meet timber needs is behind the depletion of many of these upland forests. Make our forests carbon production centres for the poor in rural areas We are hearing more and more about the importance of climate change, and some steps being taken for Bangladesh to adapt to future climate changes. But we hear very little about one of the lowest hanging fruit in the carbon area in Bangladesh: enabling the poor to develop and restore forests as carbon sinks that generate cash income. The poor need mechanisms with which they can invest in forest conservation and management, not just to benefit from fuel wood or sustainably harvested timber, but also to benefit from revenue generation linked to carbon sinks. At today's carbon prices, one 8,000 hectare forest south of Chittagong would generate a carbon value of USD 2 million, or an annual benefits stream of over 1 crore taka per year. With literally hundreds of thousands of deforest -- but highly productive -- public forest and around the country, millions of USD could be generated by poor communities acting to restore and protect those forests. Clearly this would greatly accelerate our journey towards a poverty-free Bangladesh with no additional or very little expenditure from the government. We need to have an easy framework under which NGOs and CBOs could register to have their carbon projects easily recognized by the global framework. This needs to become a priority if the poor are to benefit and forests are to be restored. Recognized and accept the existence of a profound and persistent bias against ethnic minorities in forest areas One of our most persistent biases in the forest sector is against the ethnic minorities that have lived for generations in our forest areas. There seems to be a deep concern that if we give any recognition to these minorities, we will lose the land to them. I think its time to recognize and publicly accept the basic fact: that these people have indeed lived for centuries in these forests, and thus may legitimately be called "indigenous peoples" to the forests. That may or may not mean land rights, but should recognize valid historical rights. We may take lessons from the historic declaration in the Australian parliament regarding the indigenous peoples in that country. In our case it is needed for our own good as much as for the good of the indigenous people themselves. They can help in the regeneration and sustainability of our forests using their knowledge and thus help us fight the climate change and its adverse impacts on the entire country. Make "transparency" and formal "participation" the two leading characteristics of the entire forest sector The Forest Department has in recent decades come to be seen by many as synonymous with opaque management processes and a lack of participation. Social forestry has begun to reverse this image, as has its efforts to reach out to community members around Protected areas under the "collaborative management" processes of the US AID funded Nishorgo Programme. But more work remains to be done. And the heart of the change needs to be a public, simple and clear acknowledgement that the Forest Department is committed in everything it does to two central principles" transparency and participation. How the new focus would be achieved is not entirely clear, but what is clear is that without this focus on transparency and formal participation, it will simply not be possible to protect the forests we still have, and to restore those we used to have. Progress on these eight urgent actions would improve fuel wood supply for the poor, commercial timber supply, coastal zone protection, wildlife populations, nature tourism opportunities, fisheries productivity, and possibly even temperature regulations, not to mention the genetic benefits of protecting our unknown plants, animals and other species. This is my humble attempt to draw national attention to these important issue so that a national dialogue may take place here and now and we can initiate pro-forest cover and pro-poor actions before it is too late. Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury is former Secretary to the Government and Global Councillor, IUCN.