Dhaka – A national workshop cum training on “Development & Harmonisation of Land Cover Classification of Bangladesh within the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) Region” was held at the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) from 21-24, December 2009. This workshop cum training was conducted by the Mountain Environment and Natural Resources’ Information System (MENRIS) Division of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), supported by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and in cooperation with LGED at Agargaon, Sher-E-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka, Bangladesh as a part of a regional land cover mapping of the HKH region initiative.

This workshop cum training was organised as a follow up of regional workshop on “Development and Harmonisation of Land Cover Classification in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH)” held from 13-24 October 2008 in Kathmandu. The primary objectives included – upgrading the general legend with inputs derived from local knowledge and the host country’s perspective; preparing a national legend which is harmonised at the regional level; training the national representatives on the use of classification software, and; establishing a work plan for the production of the final national land cover datasets.

The HKH region is the most recent mountain chain in the world and hence the most vulnerable one too particularly in terms of environment and policy. These have now been further deteriorated with the impact of climate change and degradation caused by improper use of natural resources. The best indicator to address these vulnerabilities is land cover and its dynamics over a period of time. Land cover had been identified as critical information needed for national and regional reporting and decision making. At regional level, a combined effort has been made by ICIMOD and FAO to map the land cover. ICIMOD being the regional and intergovernmental organisation having regional mandate will help the national organisation, responsible for the assessment and management of natural resources within their countries, to carry out the land cover classification at national level by following the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) developed by FAO/UNEP. LCCS is a comprehensive and standardised -a priori classification system based software, designed to meet specific user requirements and created for mapping exercises independent of scales or means in the world.

Mr. Basanta Shrestha, Mr. Salman Asif Siddique, Mr. Kabir Uddin and Mr. Birendra Bajracharya from ICIMOD were the main resource persons of this workshop. There were 17 participants from Bangladesh in this workshop cum training.