2.1 Description of the study area
The peninsula is located in Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern most district of Bangladesh. As this study focuses on the impact of Rohingya on forest degradation and ecosystem function loss, it considers administrative boundaries of Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD). In Cox’s Bazar district, there are two forest divisions, i.e., north and south, however refugee camps are mostly built in South division (BFD GIS Database). Based on influx of Rohingya and their catchment area, this study takes 23 beats into account (beat is the smallest forest administrative unit, defined by BFD) of south forest division. To understand future condition of forest cover, we further consider some portion of the Naikhongchari beat of Bandarban forest division defined by IOM and FAO (2017). The use of beat may be beneficial to investigate future impact of refugee in every direction from existing camps. There are three sub-districts (upazilas ) and 24 beats within the study area (Fig. 1). Geographically, it is located between 92° 17ʹ E, 20° 50ʹ N and 92° 12ʹ E, 21° 19ʹ N, and covers an area of 41,162 ha.
Irrespective of administrative boundaries, defined by BFD and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), environmentally, the study area situated in a very sensitive ecosystem. It includes Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary (TWS) (GoB, 2009; BFD, 2014) formerly known as the Teknaf Game Reserve (TGR) (Alam et al. 2012). Besides, it has proposed Inani National Park (Nishorgo, 2019), which is a reserve forest (Belal, 2013; Rahman, 2011). The area of the TWS is 11,615 ha (Green, 1987; Nishorgo, 2019, Moslehuddin et al., 2018), covering 25% of the study area, and situated in close proximity to Rohingya camps. Inani Reserve Forest has an area of 15,500 ha, covering 33% of our study area. The other reserve forest comprises an area of 6,365 ha, which covers 13.5% of the study area. Therefore, 71% of the study area includes a critical ecosystem and the rest (29%) is no forested land, occupied by human settlements and agricultural lands. As a tropical semi evergreen forest, the area is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna, including 55 mammals, around 280 birds, 56 reptiles, 13 amphibians and 290 plant species (Khan, 2008; Nishorgo, 2019). The study area also serves as a key habitat to critically endangered flagship species of Asian Elephants (Elephus Maximus ) (Khan, 2015). It is characterized by hot and humid climatic conditions, and therefore, conducive for a range of biodiversity (Butler, 2012). Prior to recent influx, Rohingya communities are living in two camps since 1942 (Fig. 1) (Human Rights Watch, 2000) within the study area. After 25th of August 2017, with a massive influx, they are now located in 48 camps. The density of Rohingya population is shown in Fig. 1.