Area-Based Conservation Approach in the Sundarbans and Saint Martin's Island of Bangladesh: Prospects and Challenges
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Abstract
Area-based conservation is regarded as a viable approach to conserve biodiversity. The Convention of Biological Diversity 1992 (CBD) is the key international instrument creating binding obligations for state parties. With the influence of CBD and other international instruments, Bangladesh has adopted new laws, policies, and strategies and thereby seems to have departed from the traditional approach to conservation and embraced the new approach to conservation in line with CBD. This study assesses Bangladesh’s conservation approach regarding the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest and Saint Martin’s Island—two critically important ecological sites and concludes that despite various conservation measures taken by the Government of Bangladesh, the biodiversity of these two sites is in decline and that these two critically important ecological sites require a well-functioning area-based conservation approach. It identifies the reasons behind the failure of Bangladesh’s conservation efforts regarding these two sites and finds out the key factors contributing to this failure. In doing so, it emphasizes qualitative elements of conservation, such as effective and equitable management, ecological representativeness, connectivity, integration into wider land and seascapes, etc. Bangladesh has already taken the first steps towards a proper conservation approach in theory; it is now high time to bring them into proper practice.
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