Awareness & Education Workshop: All in the same boat

From March 13 to 17 we had a workshop on “Developing a Conservation Education and Community Outreach Strategy for Tiger Conservation in Bangladesh.” The workshop was held on a boat that left Dhaka with thirty two participants including the facilitator, Mr. Frits Hesselink (former Chair of the IUCN Commission on Education & Communication) from the Netherlands. Mr. Malcolm Whitehead (Head of Discovery & Learning) from the Zoological Society of London was present as a joint facilitator. Other participants consisted of the WTB members, Forest Department (FD) officials, members from different NGOs. The objective of the workshop was to create a platform from which prospective partners can collaborate and participate in developing a multi-stakeholder communication strategy for tiger conservation in Bangladesh.

As we departed from the chaos and intense pollution of the Dhaka outskirts the noise and industry slowly gave way to villages and finally the serene Sundarbans. The workshop proved to be very engaging and unlike any other traditional workshops. There were various activities for the participants including fieldwork in which we conducted interviews of the local villagers. We also shared success stories of past conservation efforts and also played “brain-games” that required the players to innovate to win. Through these we learnt that behavioural change is sometimes emotional and it is easier if it is a shared experience. Besides some other elements, it also requires meaningful interaction and an understanding of the context.

Then again through the session of “Prioritising Behaviour Change,” we decided on the most important issues affecting the Sundarbans, identified the key audiences involved and prioritized behaviour change accordingly. This activity opened up the scope for exploring the change pathways of each target audience by again identifying their knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP). Once we analysed the KAP for each audience, we thought of the various communication interventions that could be implemented to bring about the desired behaviour change.

Upon reaching the southern edge of the Sundarbans forest we left the boat and departed on foot for the final expedition to the vast Bay of Bengal where we even engaged in mud fights. Finally, on March 17 we made our way back to the familiar Dhaka to meet the huge task awaiting us – forming the communication strategy!



Testing the tiger survey

In March we started a study that will test key aspects of our tiger abundance survey and help us improve our monitoring approach. The tiger abundance survey is a Sundarbans wide survey of tiger track frequency – the assumption being that more tiger tracks = more tigers. However, a certain number of tigers will still make a range of different numbers of track sets. So, we need to measure how big this range of track sets is so we can work out how much change in the overall population we can detect.

Naser Hossain (Assistant Conservator of Forests in Forest Department) is heading this survey with the help of Alam, Mizan, and Khairul. Prof. Dave Smith (University of Minnesota), Prof. George Gale (King Mongkut University), Prof. Tommasso Savini, and Adam helped Naser finalise the methodology and start the survey off. The results of the survey will be used by Naser for his MS at King Mongkut University so we are able to build capacity in the FD at the same time as answering important research questions. Naser and his team have the daunting task of surveying the Sundarbans three times. We wish them luck for the finish.



Building More Tiger Teams

Dr John Lewis who visited us in January to help train up our/FD staff in tiger immobilization has updated his organization’s website to include us! Through this PR, Wildlife Vets International are trying to raise funds to help arrange more training, and also to find a support vet who can come and work together with Mahbub to develop both Mahbub's wildlife vet skills and also those of the FD. For details please click the Link

As a part of our Community Outreach strategy, we need to build community teams to address tiger-human conflict and develop a Tiger-Human Conflict (THC) protocol. The protocol will be based on research of the spatial and temporal distribution of tiger attacks in the Sundarbans. The objectives of the community teams are to reduce the retaliatory killing of stray tigers by villagers, decrease human sufferings due to tiger attacks in the Sundarbans and help improve the relationship between the FD and the local people. The two types of teams that will be formed in Khulna, Satkhira and Sharankhola ranges are Village Tiger Response Team (VTRT) and Forest Tiger Response Team (FTRT). This work is being led by Modinul and his team, who left for Khulna in March. They are already in the process of building liaisons with the local government administrative staff which includes District Commissioners (DC), Upazilla Parishads (UP) Chairmen and local Members of Parliament (MP).

We have also supplied the FD with their first set of veterinary equipments including tranquilizing materials as a part of our capacity building scheme within the FD. The FD now have the skills and equipment to try and anaesthetise stray tigers, but they will need the support of the local people if they are going to avoid future killings.

Experiencing Chittagong: A land of tobacco

Our research officer Suprio Chakma sent us an interesting report based on his field experiences in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). He is still in the field conducting a survey on tiger presence in the CHT and also to find out if the region has potential to sustain tigers in the future. In his words, his work includes “forming survey team, travelling through rough terrain, experiencing cultural diversity and of course realising the threats on biodiversity.” The team has gone as far as the Bangladesh-India-Myanmar border in search of tiger footprints and prey species. Suprio observes that among the large prey species, barking deer are common while Sambar deer are surviving in low numbers in the few remaining forest patches. Asiatic black bears also exist, but they face threat of local extinction due to hunting.

Apparently large scale hunting of wild animals is being carried out by the indigenous people, skins and body parts of wild animals are commonly found in local households. Massive tobacco cultivation has also found its way into the large parts of the region. Suprio adds that once the CHT was famous for cotton production but now it has turned into a land of tobacco.



Forest Protection & Legislation

An important section of the Bangladesh Tiger Action Plan (BTAP) is to enact and implement sound laws with regards to tiger conservation. As a part of this plan the Forest Department (FD) has to upgrade their existing laws and make them more effective. We are helping the FD achieve this by reviewing the Wildlife Act and the Forest Act.

Christina Greenwood and Tamanna Rahman submitted the initial comments on the latest draft of the Wildlife Act to the FD and are continuing to work on a document to provide further comments on the Wild Life Act and Forest Act. They are summarising the relevant international conventions and legislations of other countries and developing recommendations from this research.

Compiled by
Nazneen Ahmed
Dhaka