Bangladesh Social Forestry Programme — Participatory Benefit-Sharing Agreements (PBSA)

Bangladesh's Social Forestry Programme, run by the Forest Department under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, pays rural participants for restoring tree cover on degraded state land through Participatory Benefit-Sharing Agreements (PBSA). Piloted from 1982 under the Community Forestry Project and formalised through the Social Forestry Rules (2004, amended 2011), the Department leases roadside strips, woodlots, agroforestry plots and coastal buffer zones to landless or marginal households, who plant and tend trees over roughly a 10-year rotation.

At harvest, the Department auctions the timber and shares proceeds under a written agreement — typically 40-65% to the participant or group, with the remainder split between the Forest Department and local Union Councils, plus a 10% reserve for a Tree Farming Fund that finances replanting. A related, ongoing World Bank-supported project (Sustainable Forests and Livelihoods, SUFAL) targets a further ~79,000 hectares, including 22,000 hectares of coastal green belt, and roughly 40,000 households.

Over more than four decades of operation, more than 700,000 people have participated, including roughly 134,500 women, creating 40,387 hectares of new forest and 48,420 kilometres of strip plantation. Disbursement records show real cash flowing to participants: in the 1999-2002 harvest cycle, 13,185 participants shared 174.39 million taka out of 398.17 million taka in total sale proceeds; over 2000-2003, participants received roughly US$5.26 million (more than 23,000 people paid) against roughly US$5.59 million retained by government, with average payouts around US$223 per person (ranging up to US$5,000-8,500 for larger allotments).

Independent academic and press sources document real weaknesses alongside these figures. A peer-reviewed study in Forestry (Oxford) found the programme's actual implementation diverges from its poverty-reduction policy intent, with benefits frequently captured by local elites rather than the intended landless poor, and reported corruption among some Forest Department field officials. Budget execution has lagged targets (roughly US$15.4 million spent annually against US$68.4 million allocated in one multi-year period), participants' usufruct rights remain legally insecure, and weak market infrastructure for non-timber forest products leaves growers exposed to exploitative middlemen. Gender constraints persist too: one survey found only 46% of women participants could sell their own produce without a husband's consent. The programme is nonetheless one of the longest-running, most extensively documented benefit-sharing forestry schemes in South Asia.