Land use and land cover change has a relation with the sustainable development of a region. Land use and land cover is associated with energy flow, material flow, landscape condition, biotic condition, hydrology and geomorphology and chemical and physical characteristics. Thus it is related with the environmnetal part of sustainable development.

Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of "needs", in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organisation on the environment's ability to meet the present and the future needs. (Brundtland Commission, 1987).

Sustainable development is based on environmental sustainability (ecosystem protection, environmental management etc.), economic prosperity (economic growth, employment opportunity etc.) and social equity (socio-cultural development, political stability and decorum etc.), which in broader sense basically somehow related with the land use and land cover change. The rapid removal of land cover and change in land use, while beneficial to some in the short term, may doom our next generations to a life devoid of the services provided by land use and land cover ecosystems and contribute to human impoverishment in both economic and aesthetic terms.

It is only in the past two decades that we began to recognise the cumulative consequences of land use and land cover change to life on earth. It can cause (i) soil losses due to erosion and leaching; (iii) silting up of rivers rendering costly dams useless; (iv) change in local and regional patterns of rainfall and temperature which can negatively affect locally growing plants; (v) removal of tons of carbon through logging; (vi) emission of carbon from tropical deforestation through burning and decomposition; and (vii) biodiversity losses, given the still poorly understood value of plant and animal species' contribution to our life and living.

An understanding of the implications of changes in land cover and land use is a fundamental part of planning for sustainable development. On the one hand the transformation of land cover and land use by human action can affect the integrity of natural resource systems and the output of ecosystem goods and services. On the other hand, by careful planning, the development of new patterns of land cover and use can enhance the well-being of people (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The need to consider the coupling of social and ecological systems through the study of land use and land cover change has been identified as an urgent priority by a number of organisations. The recently announced Global Land Project (GLP, 2005) which is a joint initiative promoted by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), for example, takes as its starting point the proposition that there is a limit beyond which the Earth System (which includes all its biophysical, economic, technological and societal elements) can no longer absorb the impact of human activity. According to the GLP, this represents the sustainability limit.

Now-a-days in Bangladesh scientists and policy makers are recognising the land-systems perspective. The law of declaration of “Ecological Critical Zone” is one of the examples of that. The importance of a landscape and land cover concerns have also been emphasized through the several environmental laws of Bangladesh (Environmental policy, Water policy, Forest policy, Agricultural policy etc.). In the United Nations Secretary-General's report, Toward a Larger Freedom, it has been described that access to land and secure rights over natural resources is fundamentally linked to the three pillars(Development, Human Rights and Security) for achieving the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs).

Human systems depend critically on the state of the environment. Managing a sustainable evolution of land-use systems at the regional scale concerns various themes of vital importance: To achieve food security, agricultural production must be expanded and intensified in harmony with demographic, socioeconomic and technological changes. This requires prudent land management to maintain healthy agro-ecosystems.

Land-use/cover changes affect the hydrological cycle both qualitatively and quantitatively by influencing how precipitation is intercepted, evapotranspired, and retained in soils, which in turn determines the amount and speed of runoff. Land-cover change also influences local soil erosion and nutrient losses. At the river basins, it determines water availability and the intensity and frequency of flooding. Ecosystems and land in general store waste materials and provide critically important purification functions. The ability to provide these services is threatened by pollution and land degradation due to inappropriate land use, or over-exploitation that transgresses capacity thresholds.

In Bangladesh people still depend on natural resources -- land , water, crops, fish, trees, fruits, vegetables both from land and water, poultry, livestock to manage their livelihood portfolios. Any degradation and loss of access to natural resources deprive them of their livelihood potential.. Any destruction of necosystem based natural resources affect the poor people's nutrition intake and make them most vulnerable. As natural resources are strongly related with the land use and land cover change so it is a very important issue for sustainable development in Bangladesh.

Byomkesh Talukder is one of the Faculty Members of Bangladesh Public Administration Trainig Centre (BPATC), now doing his MSc in Environmental Policy at Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC), Hiroshima University, Japan.