the early 1950s, the Bangladesh Forest Department
at TGR, CWS and RF 2 allowed local landless and
poor people to live in these areas to protect the forest.
We defined these inhabitants as local people because
they were born in the areas and hold property rights
from their ancestors. Similarly, indigenous tribal people
who resided around RF 1 before the 1980s were
also defined as local people. People who migrated to
the study areas from the beginning of the 1980s to
the present day and settled without government approval
were defined as immigrants. Immigrants were rehabilitated
around the study areas from other districts
under the protection of various political and social
groups and were often considered as strong potential
vote banks for political parties. However, in this study,
we defined both local people and immigrants as ‘villagers’.
Sarker and Røskaft (Forthcoming) describe the
demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the
respondents