Sustainable Development, State Policy, and Gender: Examining the Effect of the Forest Policy on Gender Relations of Indigenous People in CHT in Bangladesh

This study aims to analyse the effect of the forest policy of Bangladesh on gender relations of indigenous people in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Forest is one of the key word or construct of development discourse and recently, in 1992, it has been incorporated in Agenda 21 of Earth Summit where the participation and rights of indigenous people, particularly women, has been emphasised and gender equality has been discursively ensured. With the objective of showing the discrepancies between the statements and actual effect of the policy, following the field investigation this study has found that gender relations prevailing in CHT have been negatively affected following the implementation of the policy and this effect has been intersecting with age, socio-economic status and gender. The outcome was such that the socio-economic gap between different groups within the indigenous community has widened; women, particularly the poor became poorer; old women lost their assets and became subject to the mercy of household members. All in all, development policy instead of developing the indigenous people, it worsened their living conditions, widened the socio-economic gaps and narrowed the bargaining power of women. Relevance to Development Studies: The recent global development discourse has focused to environment including forest. The state is considered as a responsible body to formulate forest policy to combat deforestation and ensure sustainable development. At the same time gender equality is another key construct of development. So, the study on the effect of the forest policy on gender relation of indigenous people can give key insights about the interplay of two key word of development which also provide evidences supporting to post development theories.