Bangladesh is recognized as one of the biodiversity-rich countries in the world, hosting a wide variety of ecosystems including coastal and marine, inland freshwater, terrestrial forests, hill ecosystems, and man-made homestead ecosystems. The country’s natural landscapes such as the vast Haor wetlands, largest mangrove forest—Sundarbans, and hill forests harbor rich genetic diversity and a multitude of plant and animal species. This biodiversity includes over 6,000 varieties of rice and numerous species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish.
However, this rich biodiversity faces significant threats from habitat loss, population pressure, pollution, and climate change. The Bangladesh government has enacted several policies and legal frameworks to conserve biological diversity, including the Biological Diversity Act and national policies on environment, forest, water, fisheries, and land use. Protected areas cover nearly 17.5% of forest land and about 1.8% of the country’s total land area, including 17 national parks and 21 wildlife sanctuaries, Ramsar sites like Tanguar Haor, and World Heritage Sites such as the Sundarbans.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change oversees biodiversity conservation nationally through the National Technical Committee on Biodiversity. Efforts include habitat protection, species conservation, ecosystem restoration, capacity building, and aligning national development with international biodiversity goals such as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Despite challenges, Bangladesh has established legal and institutional mechanisms to safeguard biodiversity and is actively working to integrate biodiversity conservation into development planning for sustainable use of natural resources and long-term ecological balance.