The role of protected areas co-management in enhancing resistance and resilience of deciduous forest ecosystem to extreme climatic events in Bangladesh

Due to ongoing and projected climate change as well as increasing anthropogenic disturbances, the tropical deciduous forest has been experiencing a decline in its biomass and productivity. To mitigate this adverse effect, many tropical countries have adopted forest co-management engaging local communities. However, the effects of co-management on the resistance and resilience of forest ecosystems to extreme climatic events have rarely been tested. The present study investigates the effects of co-management on resistance and resilience to extreme climatic events in two major tropical deciduous forest protected areas of Bangladesh, namely Madhupur National Park (MNP) and Bhawal National Park (BNP), through remotely sensed satellite data. We used the Google Earth Engine platform to access the Landsat images from 1990 to 2020 for a comprehensive assessment of the forest cover condition under two major management regimes (i.e., traditional and co-management). We find that co-management slows down the rate of forest destruction, where the rate of forest destruction was 108 ha year−1 in MNP and 121 ha year−1 in BNP during the year 1990–2008 under traditional forest management system. Under the co-management regime, forest cover increased by 19 ha year−1 and 41 ha year−1 from 2009 to 2020 respectively in MNP and BNP. Our study finds a highly significant correlation between rainfall (p