Indigenous Food Habit of the Hajong Tribe Community in Bangladesh: Implication for Sustainable Extraction and Biodiversity Conservation in North-East Bangladesh

The Hajong are the ancient tribal forest community among the ethnic minorities of the North-East region of Bangladesh. The study was carried out with respect to three income groups highlighting their indigenous knowledge. A total of forty-five households (fifteen from each income groups) were assessed using different participatory appraisals through semi-structured questionnaires. A special type of indigenous knowledge on food habit was explored in the Hajong community, which correspond to the severe dependence on forest resources. They collect their food resources from homestead forest (45%) followed by forest (40%), market and others. They have indigenous hunting procedure to trap the animal in the forest. Twenty three tree species were tremendously planted in their homestead forests which are the very important source of food. Male are highly responsible to collect the food materials from forest as well as other sources.