Community Participation in Natural Resource Management

VIKASA

EXPERIENCES OF VIKASA

VIKASA began its work in Vontimamidipalen, a small tribal village in Madugula Mandal. The work was wasteland development and plantations were raised in an agro-forestry model on 15 acres of land as a pilot programme. The successful work spread to twenty other villages in two panchayats – Avuruwada and Jalampalli – with support from Oxfam-India.

The programme was implemented on a food-for-work basis, providing 50 kilograms of rice to each participating family, per acre of land developed. In these villages people practiced podu or shifting cultivation on both reserve forestlands and revenue wastelands; besides this, they smuggled of bamboo and fuel-wood by head-loads. However, these activities were not sufficient to make both ends meet.

Agriculture in this region is rain fed and the yields are very low due to high the erosion of soil by wind and rain. This unfortunate situation led to the successful entry of exploitative moneylenders. However, Vikasa’s intervention brought about a sea change, turning the podu patch into cashew (mixed with other species) gardens. People started earning money from the fourth and fifth years and the green cover improved on the barren lands. All the people abandoned podu cultivation which had become unsustainable by then with no new forest available. This brought about a good change and paved way for the introduction of Joint Forest Management (JFM) in nine out of the 20 hamlets mentioned above.

COMMUNITY FOREST MANAGEMENT

In 1993, a network called the ‘Eastern Ghats Initiative’ (EGI) was formed by grouping several grass root level NGOs working with tribal communities living in the forest fringe areas of Khammam, East Godavari, Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam districts. Several workshops and training camps were conducted to create awareness among fellowship holders of the EGI programme and participant community members by some leading NGOs, including Vikasa, in the four districts. The role of Vikasa as nodal agency was to coordinate the work being carried out by other NGOs within the group and submit periodic reports to SPWD. Vikasa as Nodal Agency hosted two half yearly workshops on Eastern Ghats on JFM in December 1995 and in July 1997. Several Training Programmes were also conducted for the fellowship holders and Vana Samrakshana Samiti (VSS means Forest Protection Committee) members on capacity building, Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) collection, preservation and marketing, savings and credit, etc.

Vikasa implemented the JFM programme in nine tribal villages with the formation of nine VSSs inAvuruwada Panchayat in Visakhapatnam District. Sri Samalamma VSS, under the auspices of Vikasa was started in Tiruvada village in 1994; this began a series of nine VSSs formed under JFM, uptil 1998. In these villages traditional forest boundaries exist with other VSSs; this is the foothills of Eastern Ghats and most of the inhabitants are tribal people belonging to Manya Dora, Konda Dora, Gadaba, Bhagata and Konda Reddy communities. All the nine VSSs are a part of Avuruwada Panchayat and had common boundaries with one another with a common path leading to forestland. To restrict the rampant illegal bamboo felling and smuggling of timber, Vikasa initiated a dialogue with Avuruvada hamlet, located next to the common approach road to the Reserve Forest, to initiate the VSS. This VSS in Avuruvada paved the way to convince the other eight hamlets to effectively protect the forest.

A process to motivate people on all aspects of JFM began. Even though the people were reluctant at first – the fear that Forest Department may reclaim the forest, quite real – they agreed to form VSS. The implementation of community and forest development work were incentives for the people who formed the VSS. At a later stage, Vikasa promoted the formation of a federation of nine VSSs – extended to different forest ranges – to bring about more cooperation and unity among VSS members. This helps the members voice their concerns on issues relating to JFM. The people of these villages depend on forests for their livelihood. They collect fuel wood, bamboo and timber from the forest and sell them in nearby villages and towns. A significant number of non-tribal people smuggle bamboo and sell it to the basket makers, whose livelihoods have also been adversely affected by the formation of VSSs. The forests in this region vary from an open scrub jungle in the plains to moist deciduous forests in the uplands. The NTFPs available are marking nuts, myrobalans (Terminalia spp), soap nuts, amla and tamarind. A considerable amount of bamboo is also available in certain patches of the forest.

The practice of podu was also common to all the villages but, ever since Vikasa started promoting land based programmes like agro forestry and wastelands development, there has been a reduction in this practice. The rehabilitation of podu cultivators is easier in the foothills than in the uplands because it is possible to find alternative sources of livelihood in the foothills.

FUTURE CHALLENGES

Forest protection in VSS areas is satisfactory but there is a great amount of pressure from nearby non-tribal villages for bamboo and other needs. A number of artisans are directly dependent on the forest patch protected by the nine VSSs and, despite the good effort of all the VSS, the pressure on the forest patch is tremendous. A permanent solution to the problem through constant dialogue between villagers is urgently required. A market for bamboo will solve the protection and management problems of VSS but for this the Forest Department must come forward to work out necessary linkages. As yet the Forest Department has failed to solve this problem and the situation has deteriorated.

The sustainability of community management of any forest is a tough task. A high degree of commitment is required from the planners, the NGOs and, of course, VSS members to safeguard forests which are threatened by smugglers, poachers, land grabbers, bureaucrats and the urban rich. One way is to start a cooperative exclusively for VSS members and tribal people. Linking up of the cooperative with the VSS would be a probable answer to sustain this effort. Thrift and credit activities and the linking of markets of agriculture and forest produce are futurepossibilities. Success of this activity will go a long way in protecting and sustaining community involvement in forest protection.