TALE OF TANGUA_ Community Based Eco Tourism & Livelihood Development at Tanguar Haor, Bangladesh

Bangladesh University, Department of Architecture, Dhaka

Project idea

Tanguar Haor is a wetland system comprising of 10000 ha of land area and is located at the north-eastern district of Sunamgonj, Bangladesh, and at the foothill of the Khasi Hills. There are around 80 villages and the haor is the source of livelihood for more than 60,000 people.
The resources of the haor are boundless, as it is one of the largest sources of fisheries for Bangladesh. Tanguar Haor is ecologically critical nationally, and internationally, and appropriately, declared as a RAMSAR site in 2000. Besides providing the entire country with one of the most important delicacies of Bangladesh -hundreds of fishes, Tanguar Haor is also important for migratory birds which call it their home during the winter months. Not to mention its ecological value for its swamp forest, reed land, and *beels. Throughout the year Tangua provides a habitat for 150 species of flora, 141 fish species, 208 species of birds, 11 amphibian species, 34 species of reptiles, and 19 species of mammals.

While the area is quite rich in terms of its ecological, environmental, and resource characteristics, and is located only 10-20 km northeast of Sunamgonj district town, it is also considered an equally remote area. As one villager put it during the discussion “the villages of Tanguar are so remote that even news from the radio reaches a day later”. The schools in the village are without teachers and as one of the influential government officers put it, “nobody wants to stay in Tanguar to teach at schools and we also cannot find local girls [qualified enough] to be appointed in the school”.

Around 80% of its community directly depends on tanguar haor for their living but almost 8 months of their livelihood yearly timeline they have almost nothing to do for their living. So they illegally fishing, cut down trees, and doing so many unwise things, that is making massive destruction of nature.
This project tends to make alternative economical sources through Eco-tourism for the community to save their existence and the biodiversity of the tanguar haor at the same time on a symbiotic relationship.

I tried to study the present status of tourism in Tanguar Haor, with a future plan to develop this Wetland destination in a Sustainable Management approach based on the needs of the local community. The aim of this project is to draw conclusions that help to develop Sustainable management and destination development plan for Tanguar Haor, which will ensure- long term economic viability to the Local Communities, Conservation, and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources of Tanguar Haor while enhancing tourists/visitors experience as well as community well-being. This project consists of three basic parts. Current tourism attractions, facilities, accessibility, economic contributions of Tanguar Haor are described in the first part. The second and third part respectively contains several key issues which need to be addressed for sustainable tourism development, as well as their prioritization matrix along with objectives and appropriate action plan. The research paper endorsed continuous measurement and monitoring of output so that evaluation can be done with the success criteria of destination management action plan, to ensure sustainable development of Tourism, Tanguar Haor resources, and Community.

Project description

Tanguar Haor is one of the most beautiful and largest Haor in Bangladesh, having full of amazing resources in its heart. But from the last two centuries, it has already lost most of its natural features for deforestation, illegal fishing, and destruction of its food cycle.
This project's vision is to protect its biodiversity and ecosystem by the local people in the meantime ensuring their economical solvency through Eco-tourism. A proper and maintained Eco-tourism can make a great symbiotic relationship between nature and community in Tanguar Haor. Offering neighborhood homestay to the tourist makes them more engaged to the community and their lifestyle and in the process, the community becomes the service chain and creates more opportunities for their economical benefit.

Technical information

As this area environmentally is very sensitive and remote, I tried to follow the traditional or local architectural language to propose, and that is easy to build and maintain an environment friendly.