A Real Agroforestry Symbiosis from Shifting Cultivation and its Evolution towards Stable Continous Agroforestry in the Upland of Eastern Bangladesh

1. To identify the type of optimal agroforestry systems that could increase forest benefits for local communities. This would be done by exploring the symbiosis between smallholder forest culture and shifting cultivation at the forest margins, where natural conditions have deteriorated due to continuous annual food cropping. 2. To identify the key socio economic and cultural drivers that can influence shifting cultivators to adopt agroforestry in small plots, serving both the interest of the farmers and environmental concerns. 3. To explore the actual and potential roles and motivations of GOs and NGOs towards achieving sustainable forest management through agroforestry, and 4. To understand how markets for forest products (through small scale people-based village industries) shape the people-forest relationship.