Meeting with the Official of Forest Department of Bangladesh and the representatives of BIPNet-CCBD held today:

A meeting with the Official of the Forest Department of the Government of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples Network on Climate Change and Biodiversity (BIPNet-CCBD)was held on 06 May 2015 at the Forest Department Office, Dhaka. The IP group was lead by the expert member of UNPFii and Chairperson of BIPNet-CCBD and Maleya Foundation Raja Devasish Roy and the Bangladesh Forest Department group was lead by the Chief Conservation of Forest, Bangladesh Forest Department Md. Yunus Ali. Mr. Alamgir Hossain, Programme Analyst of UNDP and Mr. Ishtiaq U. Ahmad, Country Representative of IUCN were also present in the meeting. A total of 11 Indigenous Peoples representatives and 08 Senior Officials of the Bangladesh Forest Department were present in the meeting.

The objective of the meeting was to improve the working relationship with the Bangladesh Forest Department and forest dependent indigenous peoples for better conservation and management of forest. The proposed forest (amendment) act 2012, village forest rules under the section 28 of the forest act 1927, social forestry rules and forest transit rules for Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), the process of creation of new Reserve Forest, update on REDD+ readiness process etc. were discussed in the meeting.

At the end, both parties in principle have agreed to have dialogues and communication in a regular basis and discuss critical issues related to laws and policies that affect the indigenous peoples.