A sustainability perspective: Community-based forest governance in Bangladesh

Forests play a vital role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land), creating ecosystem values and reducing carbon emissions through conservation and sustainable management. These policy provisions are reflected in the international forums, such as the UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD, the WCED Sustainability Report, Rio+20, and the SDG conference, which emphasise the importance of policy coherence for achieving sustainability and transformative policy solutions. This scholarship develops sustainability indicators and applies them in Bangladesh's community-based forest governance (CBFG) in order to assess policy performance. Applying a novel analytical framework and combining document analysis with expert opinions, the study examines whether policies and related instruments are coherent and consistent in delivering sustainability solutions within the CBFG policy area. This mixed-methods approach links overarching sectoral policies with policy instruments whilst examining sustainability performance based on policy goals, instruments, and implementation resources, thereby offering a comprehensive perspective of policy outputs and outcomes. This study captured mixed findings that highlight a potential gap in achieving sustainability policy solutions for CBFG. A lack of a robust institutional framework, faulty participatory monitoring and evaluation, inadequate funding options, and inefficient sectoral coordination hinder the sustainability of operations and limit the intended societal impact. Although policy instruments facilitate achieving policy goals, policy arrangements make the government organisation more powerful, rather than establishing an effective community-based governance mechanism. We proposed comprehensive policy recommendations for the Forest Department, in addition to the future research options.