This qualitative study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism geographies of Sylhet region in Bangladesh developing analytical linkages between pandemic and tourism geography. On the basis of in-depth interviews, the study explores micro effects on diverse actors involved in the tourism process of Sylhet division. As one of the emerging tourism hubs, why Sylhet region demands special treatment from local, national and international authorities and policymakers to mitigate the adverse effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, has been investigated in this paper. However, the central argument of the study is that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the demand and supply chains, local businesses, transportations, hotels and restaurants, tea industry, corporations, and local professional lives due to the imposed restrictions on human mobility, causing a sharp decline in socio-economic activities of Sylhet’s tourism geographies.

Many developed countries become successful in their governance through instituting public management albeit global south countries face some challenges to follow it in their administrative operations. In the post Second World War period, newly independent countries faced multidimensional challenges that need to be addressed by an effective and efficient administration. Many countries in global south have been struggling against these challenges by their inherited administration. But the administration of these countries is traditional in nature, formalistic in operation, and bureaucratic in process. In 1980s a number of global south countries took initiatives to reform and restructure their administration through instituting public management which considers that non-profit government administration resembles profitable private administration in some important ways as such, there are some management tools appropriate in public and in private both domains. This article looks into the challenges are faced by global south countries to institute public management, how these challenges emerge, and how these challenges could be met.

Along with the entire world, environmental degradation is a topical issue for Bangladesh. This paper investigates the process of environmental degradation as an outcome of the destruction of forests by state and non-state actors in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh. Sylhet is home of the thirty-seven indigenous communities as well as mainstream Bengalis. Indigenous people (and Bengalis) rely on forests and the environment for their survival and livelihood to some extent. This study focuses on the Khasi people, as their lifestyles and livelihoods are more closely linked to environmental resources than other indigenous populations. This study takes an exploratory approach to social research and the conceptual framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) to investigate the role of different mechanisms behind environmental degradation. It reviews the existing literature and published and unpublished reports, alongside fieldwork data collected through observation of the circumstances and interviews with stakeholders, help to explain the process of environmental degradation, its causes, mechanisms, and outcomes. The current state of environmental degradation in Sylhet, according to this study, is neither shaped by pollution nor naturally produced environmental changes. Rather, the Sylhet region's inherent dimension of environmental degradation might be conceptualized as the result of tree removal by various entities. This study shows that the government's (and the world's) reforestation and afforestation initiatives will not help the Sylhet region's environmental predicament unless the region's environmentally harmful actions by various state and non-state entities are immediately stopped.

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