Bangladesh Vulture Conservation Action Plan 2016-2025.

The Bangladesh Vulture Conservation Action Plan (BVCAP) is a framework for sustainable conservation of vultures of Bangladesh for ten years 2016-2025. The vision of this action plan is to ensure a safe environment for vultures in Bangladesh where all kinds of threats will be minimized and where vultures will provide the desired ecological services. Increase the wild population of vultures through removal of veterinary drugs harmful for vultures, habitat protection and improvement, food security, scientific research and monitoring with active participation of communities at all levels are the main objectives of this plan. The four thematic areas of this plan are: 1. Management of Vulture Safe Zones (VSZs); 2. Removal (harmful NSAIDs for vultures and promotion (safe alternative drugs) of NSAIDs with awareness development among different stakeholders; 3. Conservation breeding of vultures; and 4. Monitoring and research on vultures. These thematic areas consist of programmes which are divided into activities.
The Government of Bangladesh is committed to the protection, conservation and recovery of the vulture population. For conservation response, the Government has banned the production, distribution and sale of veterinary diclofenac from 25 October 2010. In response to regional conservation of vulture, the Regional Steering Committee (RSC) was established according to the decision of Regional Declaration on the conservation of South Asia’s Critically Endangered Vulture Species in New Delhi on 4 May 2012. This umbrella body guides and supervises vulture conservation and recovery initiatives in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. On 25 July 2013, the Bangladesh National Vulture Recovery Committee (BNVRC) was established by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) following the decision of the 3rd meeting of the Regional Steering Committee (RSC). This Committee will support and coordinate the development and implementation of Bangladesh Vulture Conservation Action Plan (BVCAP) along with other activities (see Annex I).