A community Forestry Project was initiated in 1980 in the
Protected Forest land at Pomra in the district of Chittagong. So
far, 126 landless families have been rehabilitated in 24 groups in the
project area by allotting 1.62 ha of denuded hills to each family.
Most of the families took loans from the Bangladesh Krishi Bank
for procuring inputs with the help of the Forest Department to
amounts ranging from Tk 1,000 to Tk 4,000. The paper discusses
the state of development of horticultural and forest plantations in
these plots, and the improvement of the standard of living and
socio-economic status of these families. The cropping pattern, inputoutput
ratio, Land Expectation Value and employment intensity have
been reported on the basis of a survey conducted on 24 families out
of 126.

The operational mechanism of the project is also discussed.
The major problems of the model have been outlined. The model,
if properly developed may substantially contribute towards salving
national problems like unemployment, poverty, food and forest
products deficits by depicting a way of optimum utilization of the
hitherto unproductive Unclossed State Forests, Protected Forests and
hilly khas lands of the country.