Forestry meet stresses sharing of benefits

The skills of rural craftsmen, carpenters and other artisans could be improved through capacity building, improved designing and use of modern equipment as well as use of trees from agro-forestry and wastelands, an official said today.

PK Mishra, special secretary in the Union ministry of forest and environment, told a national workshop on "Role Of Forestry In Employment Generation And Rural Development" that the Joint Forest Management recognised sharing of benefits between the local community and the forest department.

"This provides an opportunity in the long term for sustainable forest management as well as improvement in rural livelihoods through integration with other sectors," Mishra noted.

Simultaneously, the produce from wastelands and agro-forestry could help in diversification of opportunities under the panchayats through different agencies, he said.

The local institutes could form a federation of societies or cooperatives so as to enable them to have adequate bargaining power in the open market, Mishra said.

SS Negi, director of the Forest Research Institute (FRI) here, noted that the increase in the population and long gestation period of the forests had resulted in forest fringe poverty and land use change.

To mitigate this problem, Negi said several policy initiatives had been tried in the past but still a lot needed to be done.

In the Kumaon region alone during 2005-06, the government earned a revenue of Rs 245,959.80, opening employment opportunities to nearly 2,00 people from remote areas.

The productivity of the forests has to be increased to meet the growing demands of fuel wood, fodder and timber. The second challenge is to provide gainful employment and generate produce which can be harvested in a sustainable manner.

In his paper, SS Rasaeli, conservator of forests in Uttaranchal said extraction of resin (locally known as lisa) from the chir pine was not only a major source of revenue for the government but was also an important source of employment to people.