They also demanded that the governments of the region go for a pro-people policy framework for forests management or fresh forest policy, put an end to the practice of replacing native forest trees with foreign species and choose planned social forestry.

The recommendations were made on the closing day of a two-day South Asian regional workshop on "Protecting Forests and Forest Dwellers: Role of Law" at Brac Centre in the capital yesterday. Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) with support from Oxfam NOVIB organised the programme attended by the conservationists, legal experts and community leaders from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Philip Gain, general secretary of Society for Environment and Human Development Bangladesh, said that the forest dwelling communities have lost their rights of protecting and utilising the forests.

"The government always fails to recognise the customary laws and knowledge of the local community in forest management," he said adding that often, the perspectives of the indigenous people and the conservationists differ in case of forest conservation.

He demanded state recognition of customary rules of forest management, ending the practice of replacing native forests with commercial monoculture and amending social forestry rules.

There has to be a set of common principles from a broader South Asian perspective for protecting forests and environment, Farhad Mazhar of Nayakrishi Andolon observed.

Dr Ainun Nishat, country representative of The World Conservation Union, said that both ecosystem of forests and livelihood of the dependents are equal concerns in forest management.

"Mindset and legal mandate of the forest department have to be changed," he said adding, "An independent country should manage its natural resources in a way that differs from the ways the colonisers had aimed at during bygone days."

Iklil Mondol, deputy chief conservator of forests of Bangladesh, said that people's participation is essential in forest management.

Citing a number of instances of detrimental use of the forests in Bangladesh, Bela director Syeda Rizwana Hasan said that destructive and insensitive use of the forest resources by the government must be stopped without causing further damage.

Speaking on judicial activism for forest conservation, Advocate Ritwick Dutt of Indian Supreme Court (SC) said that the SC of India in 2006 sentenced an incumbent minister and a principal secretary to one month's imprisonment for violating SC ban on setting up saw mills within ten kilometres of forests.

Ajoy A Mree, chairman of Joenshahi Adibashi Unnyan Parisad, said that traditional livelihood and indigenous practices have been destroyed in Modhupur forest due to commercialisation and encroachment.

Ruthless intervention of government in the forest has resulted in tragic deaths of a number of indigenous people, he added.

Ghanashyam Pandey, chairperson of Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal, said that forest, people and democracy are closely inter-linked so far as Nepalese experience goes.

Former justice of Supreme Court Justice Golam Rabbani, Executive Director of The Ecological Foundation of India Dr Sudhirendar Sharma, Pandurang Hedge from India and Dilraj Khanal among others also spoke.