Assessing Local People’s Preferences for Landscape Character in Teknaf Peninsula for Sustainable Landscape Conservation and Development

Sustainable development requires better understanding of the human-landscape relationship in forested landscapes, one that facilitates more locally relevant and sustainable management. It can be more easily understood by the process of landscape characterisation and humans’ valuation. Therefore, this study assesses local people’s preferences and perceptions about the physical landscape, which is crucial for managing landscape and livelihood. The study investigates the diversification of landscape character types and landscape character areas (LCA), local people’s perceptions about and preferences for different LCAs, and how and why they prefer some LCAs to others. An LCA is a distinct type of landscape that is relatively homogenous in character. Two different villages located in Teknaf peninsula, Bangladesh, are examined where the villages were selected by calculating vegetation cover within a buffer of 1 kilometre. Landform and vegetation data were collected as physical characteristics of the landscape to identify the LCA, and data for local people’s perception and preferences were collected through focus group discussions and questionnaire surveys by selecting 10% of the households of each village in March 2016. The findings show that in Kerantali the diversification of landscape character types was more than in Tulatali. Homestead garden areas are highly preferred in Tulatali and forest is highly preferred in Kerantali. Kerantali\u27s people receive poor material benefit from forest areas, whereas Tulatoli\u27s people receive more material benefit from homestead garden areas. Furthermore, our findings indicate that homestead gardens play an important role as a supplement to forests

BTCV Standards Leader Training Program for Environmental Conservation Volunteers in Japan

Providing citizens with access to environmental conservation activities is considered to be important for improving the lifestyle of urban people and conserving nature. In the United Kingdom, BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) was established with the following aim: “to encourage and facilitate active public involvement in practical conservation work in rural and urban areas.” Its unique feature is focusing on “people” and running training schemes and residential programs called “conservation holidays,” rather than protecting places through trusts. The training programs cover four areas: group leadership, project organization and safety, education and training, and volunteer welfare. This training is conducted through group projects, team-building exercises, and group feedback. Participants have frequently listed “What is a leader?” and “Risk assessment process” as the most interesting in their course feedback. However, the programs on “Group feedback,” “Motivation,” and “Resolving problems” impart skills that are necessary for their training, even though the participants seem to regard project organization and volunteer welfare training as not being very important. These results indicate that Japanese conservation volunteer groups require training in these aspects in order to encourage and facilitate active public involvement in practical conservation work in rural and urban areas

BTCV Standards Leader Training Program for Environmental Conservation Volunteers in Japan

Providing citizens with access to environmental conservation activities is considered to be important for improving the lifestyle of urban people and conserving nature. In the United Kingdom, BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) was established with the following aim: “to encourage and facilitate active public involvement in practical conservation work in rural and urban areas.” Its unique feature is focusing on “people” and running training schemes and residential programs called “conservation holidays,” rather than protecting places through trusts. The training programs cover four areas: group leadership, project organization and safety, education and training, and volunteer welfare. This training is conducted through group projects, team-building exercises, and group feedback. Participants have frequently listed “What is a leader?” and “Risk assessment process” as the most interesting in their course feedback. However, the programs on “Group feedback,” “Motivation,” and “Resolving problems” impart skills that are necessary for their training, even though the participants seem to regard project organization and volunteer welfare training as not being very important. These results indicate that Japanese conservation volunteer groups require training in these aspects in order to encourage and facilitate active public involvement in practical conservation work in rural and urban areas

Causes and consequences of forest cover transformation on human-wildlife interaction in the Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh

Protected Areas (PAs) in Bangladesh have been pivotal for conserving wildlife. The country plans to increase the number of PAs by implementing new forest-governing policies with the involvement of local communities. Their efficacy in wildlife conservation and forest preservation is being questioned due to significant land cover changes within PA boundaries. It is essential to understand the current role of existing PAs in forest cover transformation and their impact on wildlife conservation before expanding the PAs and implementing new policies. This study aims to explore the land cover transformation within Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary (TWS) and describe the role of the local community and its impact on wildlife. Utilizing Landsat satellite images from 1989 to 2015, this study discovered a 46 % deforestation rate within TWS, surpassing its surrounding areas. Since 1989, 75 % of primary forests have been eradicated, leaving a mere 650 hectares intact. This transformation is shifting forested areas towards the PA boundaries, potentially threatening conservation efforts by making wildlife more vulnerable. Socioeconomic surveys of 5769 households revealed that bigger landowners within the local communities played a significant role in this deforestation. Such community-driven forest alterations increased wildlife vulnerability by intensifying their interaction with forest surrounding communities. This study presents an interesting case of the process of forest transformation within PAs with the intersection of human-wildlife conflict and deforestation. For effective wildlife conservation, strategies need to address and rectify these forest cover transformations and focus on the wildlife habitats, ensuring conservation and coexistence for forests, humans and wildlife

Socioeconomic Status Changes of the Host Communities after the Rohingya Refugee Influx in the Southern Coastal Area of Bangladesh

The refugee influx from Myanmar, known as Rohingya refugees, is a serious concern for global refugee issues. Bangladesh currently hosts one million Rohingya refugees in the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar. Considering the number of the refugees, in addition to the humanitarian concerns, they are also creating pressure on the local host communities. This study explored the socioeconomic changes of the host communities after the refugee influx. In order to fulfill this study’s objectives, 35 villages near the Rohingya refugee camps from the coastal district of Bangladesh were surveyed. In the villages, 10% of households were surveyed in 2016 and also in 2020, covering 1924 and 2265 households, respectively. A temporal comparison of the host community’s socioeconomic status between 2016 and 2020 was conducted in order to determine the changes after the recent refugee influx. This study found that the local community’s socioeconomic status degraded. The annual income decreased by 24%, which is unusual for a country with over 6% gross domestic product (GDP) growth in recent times. The income decreased from all livelihood options except farming, which could be related to the availability of cheap labor and the high demand for commodities. The villages were clustered using k-means, and 20 villages were found to be affected after the refugee influx with degraded socioeconomic status. The host community’s general perception was initially positive, but later turned negative toward the refugees. This study will be important for the government and donor agencies to develop strategies to properly manage the refugee camps and adjacent host communities.This article belongs to the Special Issue Migration-Refugee Policies and Socioeconomics, Well-Being and Sustainable Outcomes.(See "Related URI"

Family Composition and Out-Migrant Family Members in Depopulated Villages in the Mountains in Fukuoka, Japan and Spain : The Study of Small Settlements in the Mountains for the Design of Life Environmental Sphere in the Age of Population Decrease

Total population in Japan starts declining for the first time in its history. It further aggravates rural depopulation that has already been problematic for a few decades. Many settlements in mountainous areas have kept losing their residents down to the point that the communities barely function as the loci of living activities. This study seeks to obtain information and clues to design a new living environmental sphere by surveying depopulated villages in the mountains in Japan and in Spain. Small villages to be surveyed were determined with 3 criteria, the high percentage of older population (older than 64 years old), the high rate of depopulation in the last 25 years, and the remoteness of the location (about 20 km from the nearest local centers, such as the office of municipal government). Two villages with similar conditions were selected, one in Fukuoka, Japan, and another in Aragon, Spain, and were surveyed for basic household information and out-migrated family members. Results show that the age composition of the two villages indicates similar degrees of aging, but the two differ in the behavior of out-migrated family members. Those associated with the Spanish village more frequently return and stay in the village. Moreover, the Spanish village has an outside group of people who own houses in the village as second houses. These people fill the village during summer vacation season that effectively increase village population manyfolds