INTEGRATED PROTECTED AREA CO-MANAGEMENT (IPAC) - BIDS

Figure 2.7: SIZ per capita lands by district
PC land
PCAgri. Land
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0.24
0.09
0.16
0.05
0.18
0.07
0.11
0.09
0.2
0.11
0.18
0.08
0.06 0.06
0.1
0.07
0
Bagerhat Khulna Satkhira Pirojpur Barguna SIZ Districts Coastal Zone Bdesh
Source: BBS (2003); ICZMP (2004); BBS (2009); District Series (WARPO) (2005); DAE (2009)
In spite of that, the principal sources of livelihood are agriculture and SRF extraction activities.
Per capita land is estimated as 0.18 hectare while that for agricultural land is 0.08 hectare
compared to national average of 0.07. With respect to landlessness, however, the position of SIZ
districts is not too bad (49.1%), compared to costal zone (53.5%) and Bangladesh as a whole
(52.6%) (List of NGOs operating in upazila locations is presented in Annex Table A2.1). In the
urbanized areas of the SIZ districts such as Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira, the scope of
employment generation in industry and services is a little higher. In the offshore island a large
number of people are dependent for their livelihood on natural resources.
2.1.6 Poverty Situation in SIZ
It is generally believed that the SIZ populations are suffering from marginalization and
inequality in income. Poverty status can be considered as a proxy to extent of marginalization.
Head Count Ratios (HCR) for the SIZ districts and upazilas are presented in Table 2.8. A
comparative analysis is shown of the SIZ areas with those of non-SIZ areas, which shows a
dismal picture. The extreme poverty levels of SIZ districts and upazilas are at a considerably
higher level in almost of all the districts and upazilas, compared to respective non-SIZ areas.
Although the coastal zone, as a whole, and SIZ, in particular, is endowed with natural resources
and environment resources the SIZ upazilas have a much higher extreme poverty rates (0.42)
compared to non-SIZ upazilas in Bangladesh (0.26) 50 . Thus, the poverty situations in the SIZ
appear to be extremely severe, which have immense policy implications.
The HCR for SIZ Bagerhat is estimated as 0.43 as compared with 0.24 for non-SIZ upazilas of
Bagerhat, followed by SIZ Khulna (0.41) and non-SIZ Khulna (0.32), SIZ Satkhira (0.65) and
non-SIZ Satkhira (0.45). The only exception is for Barguna (SIZ – 0.36 and non-SIZ -0.43). For
Pirojpur, the HCR is almost identical (SIZ – 0.18 and non-SIZ – 0.19). Hence, among the
upazilas, the estimated HCRs are relatively higher for Shymnagar (0.65), Dacope (0.60)
Morrelganj (0.50), Sarankhola (0.49) and Mongla (0.42). Relatively less worse situation prevails
50 Based on Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) method, the present study made the estimates incorporating BBS-2005 data
that are yet to be published.
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