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.