Science in Conservation
Overview
ANCF's "Science in Conservation" stream applies quantitative tools — i-Tree, GIS, remote sensing, and species inventories — to make the foundation's plantation, tagging, and restoration work measurable. The aim is to move beyond "we planted N seedlings" to "these N seedlings, over T years, on these sites, produced this much ecosystem service and this survival rate, and here is what we changed for next season."
Study Area: ANCF plantation and tagging sites across Bangladesh Duration: Ongoing Role: Lead organisation Status: Building tooling and pilot analyses
What We Use
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| i-Tree | Quantify ecosystem services (carbon, air-quality, stormwater) for tagged urban and campus trees. |
| QGIS / Python (GeoPandas) | Map planting sites, species, and survival; produce per-site reports. |
| Remote sensing | Track tree cover change around plantation sites at landscape scale. |
| Field protocols | Standardised survival, growth (DBH, height), and phenology forms. |
| Open datasets | Bangladesh Red List, district forest cover, climate data. |
Why It Matters
A great deal of plantation work in the region — by many organisations, not just ANCF — is recorded only as a count of seedlings on a planting day. That number is easy to publish and almost impossible to interpret. Survival rate, species mix, and long-term ecosystem benefit are the actual conservation outcomes; they require ongoing measurement.
ANCF is gradually:
- Standardising survival monitoring for tagged trees.
- Using i-Tree to estimate ecosystem-service benefits on campus inventory data.
- Mapping tree-cover change around long-running plantation sites using freely available satellite data.
Case Studies
- Multi-year plantation survival at SUST, Sylhet (2017–2018 cohorts; 91 seedlings planted in July 2018 — survival re-survey pending).
- University campus tree inventories at Chittagong University, Cumilla University, and Dhaka University.
Notebooks
No public notebooks yet.