History of USFS in Bangladesh

Since 2009, USFS has been working in Bangladesh in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bangladesh to address crucial issues in natural resource management. USFS continued its long-term partnership with the Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) and its partners to provide technical expertise in support of forest monitoring, forest mapping, remote sensing, and geospatial application initiatives. In 2015, USFS began managing the SilvaCarbon Bangladesh program aimed at providing technical assistance to the BFD to support the development of National Forest Monitoring Systems (NFMS) through the support of USAID and in collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The USFS SilvaCarbon Bangladesh Program also facilitated collaborations with NASA Goddard Center and the University of Maryland.

2009 – 2011

• USFS IP began working in Bangladesh in 2009.
• From 2009-2011, USFS worked with the USAID Bangladesh-funded Integrated Protected Areas Co-Management (IPAC) Project, the Government of Bangladesh, and other partners, to provide technical assistance in mangrove carbon pool estimation, forest infrastructure development and forest planning focused in the Sundarbans Reserve Forest.

2012 – 2014

• In 2012, USFS began an initiative to provide capacity building opportunities and technical support to the Forest Department of Bangladesh and its partners focused on forest mapping and remote sensing.

2015 – 2019

• From 2015-2019 USFS worked as the key implementing partner of SilvaCarbon in Bangladesh. SilvaCarbon Bangladesh provided technical assistance to the Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) in the design of a National Forest Inventory (NFI) – a key component of the national forest monitoring system.

2019 – onward

• From 2019-2024, USFS have been implementing Compass Program with partnership with BFD, universities and NGOs for natural resource management.

Key achievements of USFS in Bangladesh include:

• Carbon Stock Estimation & 2009-2010 Inventory of Sundarbans Reserve Forest (2011)
• Mapping of Mangrove Tree eights using TanDEM-X Interferometric data & Acquisition of HR Commercial Satellite Data from NASA” (2014)
• Training & Assessment on National Forest and Tree Cover Change Assessment at UMD GLAD Laboratory” (2014, 2017)
• Stakeholder Analysis & Sampling Methodology Design for NFI using Forest Resource Inventory, Edit & Design (FRIED) Tool (2014)
• GPS & Geo-Spatial Skill Development Training and Material Development (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
• Workstations, infrastructure, hardware & software support to BFD’s RIMS unit with UMD Support” (2015)
• Cooperation in National Inventory Design and Designation of NFMS Expert Team (2015)
• Quality Assurance & Quality Control for NFI Data Collection & Management (2015, 2016, 2017),
• Official Launch of first Ever Satellite Based National Tree Cover Monitoring Report (2017)
• Methodology Development Support for Socio Economic Survey Design of NFI (2017)
• Regional Exchange Workshop on Forest Monitoring and Assessment (2018),
• SilvaCarbon-NASA Fellowship to build up national level RS & GIS Capacity (2017, 2018-19)