Sangu-Matamuhury Reserve was declared in 1880 and 1981 with a total area of 74,841 ha. It has high ethnic diversity, vast evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, high biodiversity, and is a part of the Indo-Malayalam Biodiversity Hotspot. The proposed project site is a mountainous forest area in South-eastern part of Bangladesh which is increasingly degraded and faces many threats like degradation and deforestation and unsustainable shifting cultivation by ethnic minorities.