Evaluating Social Equity in Protected Areas Co-management: Evidence from the Sundarbans Mangrove Forests, Bangladesh

Abstract

Protected areas (PA) co-management can offer equitable benefits from global to local level. Therefore, social equity has come out as a vital goal in PA co-management for ethical and instrumental reasons. In the Bangladesh context, however, social equity issues have been less studied in PA co-management. This study was conducted in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, and we evaluated social equity as multidimensional concepts of recognitional, procedural and distributional equity. We employed mixed approaches, including 122 structured interviews using a 5-point Likert scale, 15 key informants interview and 4 focus group discussions to collect data on equity perception. Mean and frequency (percent) were calculated and generalized linear models were performed to analyze the predictor’s influence on equity perception. The results showed that recognitional equity was perceived high, while procedural and distributional equity perceived moderate and low. Findings would be useful for policy makers in framing policies towards equitable PA co-management.

Keywords:

• Co-management
• inequitable
• mangrove
• protected areas
• social equity
• the Sundarbans

Acknowledgments

We thank local forest officials of the Sundarbans West Forest Division and co-management executive committee (CMEC) members for their help during field data collection.

Ethical Approval

Informed consent was taken from all participants who participated in interviews. This paper has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded with the individual pump priming research budget provided by the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia to TKN.