Legal and Institutional Frameworks Governing Invasive Plant Species and Biodiversity in Bangladesh
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Abstract
In Bangladesh, invasive plant species (IPS) are the greatest danger to biodiversity loss. Since British colonialism, hundreds of non-native plant species have naturalised in Bangladesh’s landscapes. These trends are likely to be perpetuated through economic globalisation. The Global Register of Invasive and Alien Species (GRIIS) develops a confirmed list of Bangladeshi IPS. Bangladesh is committed to achieving the Aichi Convention’s target to identifying major IPS and their passageways, administering or eliminating priority species, and managing passageways to halt their naturalisation. However, existing piecemeal and fragmented soft-law and hard-law instruments relevant to environment, forestry, quarantine and biodiversity are not well enough to protect biodiversity. In this regard, the country needs to develop its own comprehensive community-centred IPS governance legislative frameworks to safeguard biodiversity. This systematic review outlines and evaluates existing soft and hard law instruments and identifies their fundamental shortcomings. To achieve these aims, qualitative research methods is adopted with comprehensive analysis and evaluation of national soft and hard law instruments. However, the lack of comprehensive articulation and implementation challenges of both hard-law and soft-law instruments, reveal the inadequacy of national legislative and institutional frameworks. Therefore, it is recommended that there be community-based adaptive IPS legislative frameworks for sustained biodiversity conservation.
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References
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