1. Introduction :
The unpreceded grown in world population during the twentieth century has enormously increased man,s demand for land, water and forest resources , and with it the need for the quantification and rational management of those
resources. Nowhere is this needing more urgently felt than in the developing countries in the third world (Parry,1978). Decreasing of forest area in the North east portion of Bangladesh is one of the critical problems in recent years. Mangroves are commonly found along sheltered coastlines in the tropics and subtropicswhere they fulfil important of environmental functions. The Sundarbans currently represents the only natural mangrove forest left in Bangladesh; while in the past, natural mangroves were also found in two other areas, the Chokoria Sundarbans and Teknaf. The first one was an important natural mangrove area, located in the Matamuhuri River. By the late 1980s, the mangroves were totally destroyed and the 30 percent of the area is now completely converted to shrimp farms. The main causes of mangrove removal in Chokoria Sundarbans have been identified in the over exploitation of wood, development of human settlements and shrimp farming.(FAO 2007) In coastal Bangladesh, shrimp farming, salt production, forestry, shipbreaking yards, ports, industry, human habitation and wetlands are some of the uses in an area of only 47,000 km2 inhabited by 36.8 million people. Land use in the coastal zone is diverse, competitive and conflicting.( Islam,2006) Although forests are officially stated to occupy 15% of the land are of Bangladesh , the actual tree- covered area is reported to gave fallen to only 6% at present. (Huda and Roy ,2000) In spite of the scientist and governmental agencies important warning, the accurate information and maps from the area of forests in Bangladesh are not available. The aims of this study are
to detect Mangrove forest cover changes of Chokoria Suadarbans between 1997 to 2006 using satellite images of Land Sat TM.
