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In continuation of above matter - Resource Assessment of NWFP  NEW!

Poverty is a complex phenomenon. Apart from the macro economic problems, the degradation and restricted access of the poor, to the available material and environmental assets also fundamentally trap the poor in their circumstances. Poverty in turn leads to further degradation of the natural assets and circumscribes the limited access the poor have over the natural resources. This constitutes the vicious circle of poverty particularly in the resource rich but underdeveloped areas with undefined and inequitable access of the poor to the common property resources.

Psychological dimensions of poverty due to lack of voice, power, independence and exploitation leading to feeling of stigma, shame, helplessness, humiliation and marginalization are more painful than the poverty itself. Women are the worst sufferers because in addition to the shocks and misery inflicted on them, they become vulnerable to increased crimes both in public and at home. 

Mother Nature has provided enough for the need though it may not suffice the greed. Paradoxically, there is poverty amidst plenty. In most of the tropical countries poverty map broadly tallies with forests which are rich depository of biodiversity. Targeting on broad range of goods and services in terms of physical, material, human, social and environmental assets in conjunction with appropriate entitlement regime, People's Protected Area (PPA) envisions a proactive and people's friendly framework so that it becomes Poor People's Pool of Assets (PPA) for meaningful poverty alleviation and their enhanced well being. 

It is reiterated that the underlying philosophy of the People's Protected Areas (PPA) is evolving Sustainable Livelihood Approach with Biodiversity Conservation (SLAB). PPA is a people's programme; owned and managed by them and the State acting as a facilitator only. 

Network of People's Protected Areas (PPAs) as Poor People's Pool of Assets for sustainable livelihood approach through biodiversity conservation (SLAB).

• Highest Respect and Concern for People and their Traditional Knowledge

• Care and Share

• Capacity Building at all Levels

• Upgradation of Local Technologies, including Information Technology

Mission

• Community Based Participatory Mapping and Management Plan

• Appropriate Resource Assessment Methodologies

• Non-destructive Harvesting

• In-situ / Ex-situ Conservation and Propagation

• Grading, Processing, Value addition and Marketing

• Eco – tourism

• Biodiversity prospecting and Bio-partnership

• Entrepreneurship Development

• Revolving Fund Facility

• Gender Sensitivity

• Equitable Benefit sharing

• Improved Food Security and Health Cover

• Enhancement of Social Capital

• Enabling Policy and Legal Framework

In fact, the concept of sustainability rests on three pillars namely ecological sustainability, economic sustainability and socio-cultural sustainability. The sustainability of the protected areas will therefore flow from interaction of different stakeholders, values, interests, knowledge, entitlement regime and lobbying power. Traditionally, forests have been viewed as a means towards creation of physical wealth or conservation of biodiversity but to some groups, these are means towards survival as distinct culture and enhanced well being.

While maintaining health and vitality of the forest ecosystem, what is needed is to evolve a package of proactive and people's friendly minimal damage forest management practices which could contribute incrementally towards sustainable forest management or avoid those practices which are clearly destructive and simultaneously enhance the well being of people. This indeed will be a practical approach towards attaining the desired goal rather than perusing an elaborate and illusive theoretical matrix of SFM. Unless it is so, all laudable initiatives of JFM or SFM will wilt before bloom.

And that is what PPA is all about!

Besides ameliorating the soil and water conservation regime, which adds substantially to the enhanced agricultural food production, forest products reinforce the food security in many ways. Human history corroborates that forests have always been a source for large number of non–wood forest produces which directly contribute to the food basket of the people in form of edible fruits, flowers, gums, leaves, roots, tubers etc. During lean agricultural season, even the agricultural communities supplement their food requirement from the forests. Furthermore, income generated from sale of surplus NWFP enables the poor to have access to food.

In the Indian rural context where mixed farming is in vogue, cattle are important component of the socio-economic set up. In the complex chain of food web, cattle are secondary food producers too. They derive their food from the forests, which they convert into animal proteins in form of milk, fat, meat and other dairy products to be used by human beings. Although excessive grazing pressure, more importantly the one beyond the carrying capacity, has been viewed as a constraint by foresters, PPA endeavors to accommodate multiple use of natural resource on sustainable basis so that food resources are available to the people as well as cattle.

Land and water are two most important natural endowments but they are finite. However, with judicious mix of interventions like development of irrigation facilities, application of improved and modern agricultural practices and creation of other income generation activities based on non-destructive use of locally available natural resources, the possibilities of creating dependable wage labor can be enhanced. The initial entry point activity would be to create awareness among the local people about their latent strength, availability of natural resources and potential of using them on sustainable basis by technological upgradation. Broadly, this may be achieved by developing the hardware of the system comprising of physical activities eg. water harvesting structures, drinking water facilities, common facility centers, village level processing units, storage units etc. On the other hand, interventions like raising awareness, bridging credibility gap, confidence building, soliciting meaningful participation of the local communities and empowering them, creating income generation opportunities through skill development etc would constitute the software of the system. 

Keeping in view that for the poor communities economics precedes ecology and conservation and in tune with their priority there has to be sharp focus on productivity enhancement so that they can reap better economic returns. For those who possess land, a programme is initiated to upgrade the productivity of the agriculture system by land shaping, constructing stop-dams, tube wells and making available to them other inputs for better crop husbandry practices, so that the land under rainfed condition is transformed into double cropped or in certain cases even triple cropped land. Enhancing the productivity of the land provides good harvest as well as gainful employment round the year. All these on-farm activities can be adopted as a package for improving the socio-economic conditions of the people who otherwise practice subsistence agriculture. For landless persons off-farm activities leading to income generation can be devised by using forest biomass and other resources. In the first category, activities like NWFP collection, rope making, honey collection, nursery raising etc can be considered, whereas in the latter category schemes like poultry, piggery, mushroom cultivation, shop-keeping, grocery etc. can be envisaged. 

MFP/NWFP with their attendant instrumentalities play a meaningful role in bringing sustainability to the system because the employment generation from this enterprise is around two million persons year, which is approximately half of the forestry sector. M.F.P. related activities take care of both the unemployed as well as underemployed and M.F.P. based small scale enterprises can further strengthen the linkage of the socio-economic base on account of: 

These are some of the illustrative and by no means exhaustive interventions, which can provide a conducive environment for socially acceptable and dependable, wage labor. 

The National Forest Policy, 1988 and directives as well as decisions of the Supreme Court of India will provide the basic policy framework of PPA. The legal framework for the People's Protected Areas flows from the Indian Forest Act, 1927 and 73rd Amendment of the Indian Constitution, viz, Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, which inter alia provides for conferring the endowment of ownership rights of MFPs on Panchayat Raj Institutions (Village level institutions). In line with this, the State Government of Chhattisgarh has endowed the ownership in consonance with the following principles:

1. Harvesting of minor forest produce will be on non-destructive basis 

2. The members of the Gram Sabhas will be free to collect minor forest produce for their own consumption

3. The manner, frequency and intensity of minor forest produce collection for any use other than bona-fide domestic use by the members of the Gram Sabhas will be in accordance with the prescription of a management plan prepared by Zila Panchayat in conformity with the guidelines as may be notified from time to time.

Besides the remunerative wages paid to the forest produce collectors, the net profit from the trade will be shared among the stakeholders on an equitable basis. Under the existing system of Tendu patta (Diospyros melanoxylon) trade, the net income generated by the collection and trade of tendu leaves is distributed in following proportion:

• 70% to the primary collectors

• 15% for the development of MFPs and regeneration of forests

• Balance for infrastructure development 

This modality aims at developing positive stakes of all concerned so that rather than working at cross-purposes, each one is motivated to contribute towards a common goal. 

About Chhattisgarh State MFP (Trading and Development) Cooperative Federation:

Chhattisgarh State Minor Forest Produce (Trading and Development) Cooperative Federation Limited is an apex organization of approximately 1 million forest produce gatherers comprising of 896 Primary Cooperatives/National Parks/Sanctuaries and 32 District Unions. It is the also the nodal agency for all aspects relating to management, development and trade of minor forest produce / non-wood forest produce sector in the state.

Under the three tier Cooperative structure the primary societies have been constituted with the membership of actual puckers and chairman of the society is chosen from amongst the members only. At present there are over 10,000 collection centers spread over the length and breadth of the state and the annual turnover of the trade is over Rs 2000 million. 

Three tier system under MFP Federation

In line with the time tested philosophy of care and share and to ensure that harvesting of MFP has essentially to be on a non-destructive basis serious and concerted attempts have been made to convert these poor people from gatherer to owner. Accordingly in Chhattisgarh during 1999 & 2000 Tendu leaves collection season, in addition to receipt of around Rs 1677 million as collection wages, the societies got around Rs 813 million as net profit which is being distributed among various stakeholders.

With proper research focus, sustainable harvest and appropriate utilization pattern including godowning, processing and marketing, the turnover from MFP may cross even 4,000 million-rupee mark – a substantial sum by any standard for the rural poor.

As a part of strategy to translate above philosophy into implementable action programme, the Chhatisgarh Forest Department and MFP Federation have started following initiatives: 

Establishment of PPAs

PPA has been established in forest divisions like Dhamtari, Jagdalpur, E.Bhanupratapur, Bilaspur, Marwahi, Raigarh, E.Sarguja, Korea and Durg . Eventually every district will be covered under PPA.

Chhattisgarh is the first state in the country to have enunciated People Oriented State Forest Policy-2001. This has provided a new direction to forest management. The new policy has laid a vision to strengthen the livelihood security of tribals and forest dependant communities through sustainable and non-destructive forest management.

The Honorable Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh has declared the state as "Herbal State". This ahs initiated an all out efforts on conservation, development, non-destructive harvesting, processing and marketing of medicinal plants found in the forest of the state. 

A new Chhattisgarh Transit (forest produce) Rule – 2001 was framed to facilitate the transportation of forest produce.

State Government has delegated the powers of Registrar General, Cooperative to executive Director of Chhattisgarh State Minor Forest Produce (Tr. & Dev.) Co-operative Federation Ltd. and Managing Director/D.F.O. (District Union).

Chhattisgarh State Minor Forest Produce (Tr. & Dev.) Co-operative Federation Ltd. was constituted to initiate actions in the field of augmentation of MFP resources, non-destructive harvesting, collection, storage and marketing.

In order to improve the quality of tendu leaves, the rate for bunch-cutting was raised from Rs. 10 to Rs. 20 per standard bag.

Enhancement of collection rates of some NWFP

Collection Wage of Tendu leaves during last five years

Enhancement of collection rates of some NWFPs

These interventions by the MFP Federation have led to increased assured wages to the MFP gatherers in the interior areas where there are no employment opportunities otherwise. In this process, they got around Rs 100 million in wages as against Rs 30 million received last year. Series of such well-orchestrated interventions can substantially enhance the well being of the poor forest dwellers. 

To sum up, People's Protected Areas (PPA) envisions a people friendly framework for sustainable forest development, livelihood security and biodiversity conservation through non-wood forest products. The approach aims at conversion of Open Access Resource into Community Controlled Natural Resource via legal and socio-cultural mileu with due emphasis on equity so that the forest dwellers do not remain mere wage earners or passive gatherers of the forest produce but become pride owners of the assets thus generated.

The Chhattisgarh M.F.P (T&D) Fed Ltd. will act as a facilitator for establishment of People's Protected Areas (PPA) so that they become Poor People's Pool of Assets (PPA).

To translate the concept of People's Protected Area on the ground and to make the conservation efforts proactive and people's friendly, it has been logically decided to bring the local communities into the forefront by meaningfully involving them in the management of the natural resources. Accordingly, steps have been initiated in Dhamtari, Jagdalpur, E.Bhanupratapur, Bilaspur, Marwahi, Raigarh, E.Sarguja, Korea and Durg Forest Divisions of Chhattisgarh, to institutionalize the People' Protected Area. 

Components of PPA

Resource Management

Our traditional forest management is focused mainly on the timber species. All the inventory methodologies, tools, technologies and research inputs were concentrated only on the timber or revenue yielding species. At present, there is no systematic and reliable data regarding the availability of non wood forest products. Local people, on the other hand have sound knowledge about the different kinds of NWFP species and their natural occurrence in the adjoining forest areas. This project aims at assessing and preparing a data bank on quantity, quality and value of various NWFPs existing in an area, by active involvement of local people, using local resources and local technology.

It is proposed to devise biometrically sound methodologies to assess the resource available in the forests. After having gathered the information. Resource potential and sustainable harvest will be estimated with the help of secondary information and local knowledgeable the whole exercise will be of a Community Based Participatory Mapping and Appropriate Resource Assessment.

Integrated Ecosystem Approach

For the local tribals, NWFP is not only a source of income and nutrition but has religious, social and cultural importance too. Therefore, this project, while laying emphasis on conservation and economic sustenance will follow an integrated ecosystem approach which will address every facet of tribal life by mainstreaming the mosaic of NWFP.

Harmonizing Wood and Non Wood Production

During the 19th century, colonial administration transplanted European temperate forestry management model to tropical forests of India and the adopted silvicultural systems centered on timber alone. However, in the 21st century, silvicultural models have to be devised keeping in view the variety of diverse goods and services provided by the forests. The so-called low value and inferior species may turn out to be important source of many NWFPs. Therefore a whole new set of innovative silvicultural system by blending capony manipulation with floor management for multilayered and multipurpose product yielding purpose, becomes need of the hour so that apart from timber other products like leaves, barks, fruits exudates, tan and dyes and other miscellaneous products are also brought in focus. Similarly while assessing the regeneration status, importance has to be accorded to NWFP yielding species besides important timber species. Studies will be undertaken to formulate such silvicultural systems. 

In-Situ Conservation

In-situ conservation refers to on site conservation and propagation of species in the natural forests while ex-situ conservation and propagation comprise of growing of species outside their natural habitat. Under in-situ conservation, activities like enrichment plantations of suitable indigenous species, seed broadcasting, adopting of young seedlings including those of non-timber species having medicinal and economic importance, would be taken up. However, major emphasis would be laid upon protecting the forests from biotic pressure like excessive grazing, fire hazards and illegal felling etc. Emphasis would be laid on conservation of locally found species. The local people would be protecting these areas. With the help of the local people and their consent, areas would be earmarked for meeting their bona fide domestic needs and for rotational grazing. It is proposed to take up 1000 ha. area for in-situ conservation every year over a period of 5 years in each PPA unit. 

Ex-Situ Conservation and Propagation

Ex-situ conservation and propagation activities would comprise of raising plantations on the degraded forest areas having lesser density. It is proposed to take up 50 ha. area every year in each PPA unit over a period of five years. Farmers will also be encouraged to take up growing of NWFP including medicinal plants on their farmlands either as cash crop or in conjunction with other agricultural crops.

Non-Destructive Harvesting

Many NWFP species are highly sensitive to the level of harvest and fragility of the eco-system. Since NWFP is a critical lifeline for poor, they go in for more and more exploitative harvest when NWFP resources become scarce. This ultimately leads to destructive harvest, which may even end up in endangering the very existence of the resource. That is why due emphasis is placed on non-destructive harvest and to make it obligatory this concept has been specifically incorporated in the definition of NWFP. Non-destructive harvesting regimes will be developed with the help of local people and appropriate scientific input. 

Capacity Building

At present, due to lack of proper infrastructure and low level of skill among the people, many of the produces flow in raw form in the market. As a result, the primary collectors do not get remunerative price for their products. If they are trained in primary processing and value addition using low cost and less complicated techniques, their income may be enhanced manifold.

Grading, Processing and Value Addition

NWFP represent a unique assemblage of products originating from different parts of plants like leaves, bark, fruit, seed and root etc. Traditionally, NWFP is sold to the middlemen in raw form resulting in minimal income to the primary collector. If the MFP collected by the poor tribals is processed or value added at village level, his income will increase largely.

For imparting practical training, demonstration centres for processing and value addition of various produce are proposed to be established in each PPA unit of the project.       

Marketing and Market Intelligence

Eco-Tourism

Forests of Chhattisgarh are not only a great repository of biological diversity but also contain various sites of archeological, cultural and religious importance. Some of these unique combinations of natural and cultural heritage will form a nuclei of eco-tourism. Studies will be undertaken to tap this potential of eco-tourism. 

Agro-Forestry

Since farming of medicinal plants and other NWFP is a very high income generating activity, many farmers are willing to take up inter-cropping / cultivation of various such species. But adequate know-how and planting stock is not easily available to them. The cost of planting stock in the open market is also very high. Thus, in order to attract farmers to take up planting of medicinal plants, some incentive in the form of supply of reasonable planting stock from our nursery-cum-demonstration center is proposed. These will not only help in motivating the farmers but also will bridge the gap between demand and supply of medicinal plants and in turn will help us in our conservation efforts. 

Research and Development

The intrinsic value of NWFP depends mainly on three factors: pre-harvest planning, harvesting techniques and post-harvest operations. Different NWFP have different properties and require different strategies at all these three levels. Before harvesting, it has to be planned that how to harvest, how much to harvest and when to harvest a particular species. Furthermore, harvesting techniques will vary from species to species as the harvested product could be leaves, bark, fruits, flower, or even the root of some species. Similarly, the post-harvest operation will depend upon the type of the product, it’s shelf life, the end usage of this produce and so on. Studies will be conducted to develop strategies for management and sustainable utilization of different NWFPs. It is proposed to set up an independent research institution under Chhattisgarh MFP Federation which, apart from developing strategies regarding technical facets of NWFP, will conduct research on social, cultural, religious and other aspects of NWFP. 

The state of Chhattisgarh, lying between 17º 46'  N to 24º 6 ' N latitude and 80º 15 ' E to 84º 51 ' E longitude, has about 44 percent of its geographical area (135,224 sq. km) under forests and provides catchment to at least four main river systems, i.e., Mahanadi, Godavari, Narmada and Ganges. Major rivers of the state are Mahanadi, Indravati, Hasdeo, Sheonath, Arpa and Ibb. The climate of the state is generally sub humid with an annual rainfall ranging from 1200 to 1500 mm.

The Population

The population of the state is predominantly rural. The rural population constitutes about 82.61 % of the state. Tribal and scheduled caste population constitutes about 31.13 and 22.32 % of the state. Tribal, and scheduled castes population, along with economically backward classes have significant economic and cultural dependence on the forests of the state. They derive livelihood security from the forests of the state

The Forests

The forests of the state fall under two major forest types, i.e., Tropical Moist Deciduous Forest and the Tropical Dry Deciduous Forest. Ecologically sal and miscellaneous forest are the major forest types Sal (Shorea robusta) , Saja (Terminalia tomentosa), Teak (Tectona grandis) are the three major tree species in the state. Other notable overwood species are Bija (Pterocarpus marsupium), Dhawra (Anogeissus latifolia), Mahua (Madhuca indica), Tendu (Diospyros melanoxylon) etc. Amla (Embilica officinalis), Karra (Cleistanthus collinus) and bamboo (Dendrocalamus strictus) constitute a significant chunk of middle canopy of the state's forests. In the ground flora, a number of herbs and shrubs is profusely present.

The forest of Chhattisgarh is spread over an area of 59772 sq. km. This accounts about 44% of the geographical area of the state. The Forest contains the following types.

The forest provides NWFP, in addition to timber and fuel wood. Some of the important NWFP species are Mahua, Aonla, Achar, Safed Musli, Salai, Kullu, Rosa grass, Marorphalli, Vantulsi, Palas, Gudmar, Satavar, Kalihari, Chirota, Baheda etc.

Extent of Project area

The project area falls under nine forest divisions of the state. the project divisions are Dhamtari, Jagdalpur, Bhanupratapur(East), Bilaspur, Marwahi, Raigarh, Sarguja (East), Korea and Durg . The forest divisions constitute the vegetational , social and cultural landscape of the state. The project area includes 186 forest compartments spread in 15 ranges in nine forest divisions. The people living in 72 villages shall be involved in implementation of the project.

PPA Areas : First Phase