International Journal of Environment 4(2): 25-30 (2014) ORIGINAL ARTICLE Characterization of Dwellers as a Major Agent of Deforestationin a Reserved Forest in Bangladesh Masakazu Tani, Md. Zulfikar Rahman, Abu Zofar Md. Moslehuddin, and Hiroshi Tsuruta ISSN: 2186-0009 http://www.BENJapan.org/IJE ARTICLE HISTORY Received: 22 May 2014 Revised:1 August 2014 Accepted: 11 August 2014 Published online:15 August 2014 Abstract This paper analyses human groups and their socio-economic attributes and activities in a reserved forest area in the west coast of Teknaf Peninsula based on data generated by a household survey in the village of South Shilkhali, Baharchhara Union, Teknaf Upazila, Cox’s Bazar District in Bangladesh. Although the reserved forest is legally closed for private activities except for certain people who have special entitlements to live in the area, about one-half of dwellers are “illegal” encroachers. Compared with people outside the reserved forest, while legal Bengali dwellers inside the reserved forest earn a comparable level of income, the income of encroachers and minority ethnic groups is significantly lower. Many of encroachers moved in the closed area relatively recently and their in-flux does not seem to tapering off. Because their main means of subsistence is involved in farming that requires clearing existing forests, increase in encroachers appears to be a major threat on forest regeneration of this area. Key words:Deforestation, Encroachers, Socio-economic attributes.  2014, International Journal of Environment. All rights reserved. I. INTRODUCTION 1 Deforestation in the tropics has been accelerated in the last few decades. An estimate suggests that during the 30 years between 1960 and 1990, 450 million hectare, approximately 20% of all tropical forests, disappeared [1]. Asia has been particularly affected in this respect. During the same 30 AUTHORS INFO Masakazu Tani* e-mail: tani@design.kyushu-u.ac.jp Address: Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, Japan Md. Zulfikar Rahman e-mail: zulfikar64@yahoo.com Address: Dept of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh Abu Zofar Md. Moslehuddin e-mail: abunazia@yahoo.com Address: Dept of Soil Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh Hiroshi Tsuruta e-mail: jacobie.landscape@gmail.com Address: Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, Japan *Corresponding author e-mail: tani@design.kyushu-u.ac.jp Tel:+81-92-553-4448 year period, 30% of Asian forests were cleared and the significant portions of the remaining forests have also been degraded due to human activities. As a result, it seems to be only one- third of the original forests that remain to be relatively “untouched” [1]. Diverse explanations of deforestation have been offered and are still being debated. Geist and Lambin analysed 152 local-scale case studies of deforestation in various parts of the world and suggested that there are no overarching patterns of the link between particular causes and deforestation [2, 3]. Rather, cases of deforestation are determined by “different combinations of various proximal causes and underlying driving forces in varying geographical and historical contexts” (p. 149), [2]. Gibson and others also emphasize the importance of the role of people at the local level [4]. They argue that national governments in developing countries often lack enough resources to enforce their laws to preserve forests. Compared to this ineptness of national governments, “local communities live with forests, are primary users of forest products, and create [their own] rules that significantly affect forest condition” (p. 3) [4]. With this realization it becomes important to understand who are those “local people” likely affecting forests in more specific terms