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<<Mahila Nursery>>   <<Forestry Plantation>>   <<Horticultural Plantation>>   <<Micro-Plan Implementation>> 
 <<Women & Land Ownership>>   <<Public Hearing on NPV of Forest>>   <<Evaluation of Compensatory Afforestation>>   <<IWDP>>

Forestry

Forests play a very critical role especially in tribal areas where people depend upon forests for their livelihood. Our researches have indicated that the forests also help in absorbing the effects of drought to some extent. Forests are important to every individual for a variety of economical, social and ecological reasons and hence it is important to increase the per capita forest cover. In this context, it is important to regenerate the denuded forests and bring village common and wasteland under vegetation.

VIKSAT has continued to provide its support to the mahila nursery initiated under the SPWD supported Mahila Nursery project. Nursery has helped in increasing the plantation in local areas and also helped in diversifying the conventional agriculture towards agro-forestry and horticultural activity. The saplings were sold to the TGCSs for plantation during monsoon period. Various species like almond, amla, cashewnut, mahuda, tamarind, ardusi, eucalyptus, gulmohar, lemon and papaya were grown.

Women who were involved in raising the nursery have earned about eleven thousand rupees in four seasons. Earlier, they made some losses but training programmes have helped them in improving their skills and made them earn some profits.

In the above project a revolving fund of rupees 20,000 per village was also provided which was to be used for the women welfare and economic development. As the economics of providing guidance and regular monitoring was changing, VIKSAT decided to use the money as Revolving Fund in the Mahila Sangh formed in Bhiloda.  

To provide a boost to the plantation of trees in villages, a series of meetings were conducted in the project villages and preparatory activities like contacting the forest department for sourcing of saplings were initiated. Primary and secondary schools of the VIKSAT field areas were identified and motivated for taking up plantation in the vacant areas available surrounding the schools. The actual plantation will be carried out after the onset of monsoon. Similarly, for plantation in the village wastelands and individual farmlands, the requirement of saplings is being identified and efforts are on to make the same available from the forest department nurseries. The FD provides saplings free of cost to the Panchayats. Survival rate of the plantation was about 90%.

Liaison with the office of the District Horticulture Department for providing subsidy to the farmers opting for plantation of horticulture species was initiated. The department has agreed to support a group of 50 tribal farmers during the current year. As per the scheme, 50% of the cost of the saplings will be borne by the farmers while rest 50% will be borne by the department. Farmers were provided with saplings of fruit trees viz. mango, lemon and chickoo immediately after the onset of monsoon. Survival rate was around 75% in all villages. Distribution of 550 grafted mangoes among 53 tribal farmers was made possible with the help of the Horticultural Department of Sabarkantha.

The basic goal of the village Microplan is to address rural poverty and improve livelihood security while protecting or enhancing the sustainability of the environment and the agricultural resource base of the village. It was with this understanding that VIKSAT in financial collaboration with World Food Programme (WFP) went about preparing and then implementing Village Microplans. Various activities for land development, water conservation, trainings for women empowerment, improved agricultural practices were identified. Till date VIKSAT has implemented microplan activities in seven villages of Bhiloda taluka.   

Under the new country programme, VIKSAT had submitted village microplans of three villages of which two plans – for villages Dhuleta and Dhandhasan were sanctioned. Implementation of the activities are in progress since September 2005.

VIKSAT has been associated with this network – Working Group on Women’s Land Ownership (WGWLO) for past couple of years. As part of the network, VIKSAT documented some case studies in its Bhiloda field villages on the following:

• Women having land ownership documents

• Women having ownership document but no accessibility to it

• Women not having ownership but want to complete the procedure

• Women requiring the land ownership but facing some trouble in acquiring it

The Charkha Development Network, Gujarat organised a writing competition on women and land ownership. There were around 84 participants.

The case study on ”Whether women should own the land” documented and presented by VIKSAT stood first in the competition and the author of the case study Shri Rameshbhai Patel was awarded by the Network.

Taking forward the agenda of the working group, VIKSAT has been advocating the cause in various forums. General awareness of the community on issues related to women and land ownership is also being raised through discussions during SHG meetings and federation meetings.

For the first time, the Supreme Court has put in place a system to evaluate and collect the environmental cost of any project commissioned in forest land. Until now, only the cost of trees felled was considered. In a Judgement, India -- T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad Versus Union of India, WP 202/1995 (2005.09.26) (Valuation of forests) 11/11/2005 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Writ Petition (civil) 202 of 1995 the Supreme Court has ordered that the projects be charged on the basis of Net Present Value (NPV): value of the benefits from a forest, including oxygen production, biodiversity, carbon absorption and flood and drought control.  The only projects exempted will be government hospitals, dispensaries, non commercial government ventures like schools, water tanks, sewers. The NPV thus collected will go to a national corpus that will be audited by the CAG and used for preserving forests, not necessarily in the state where the project is coming up. This is over and above the current system of compensatory afforestation—paying for trees cut and getting new ones planted. To finalize a system to calculate the NPV, the court had ordered the formation of an expert committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Kanchan Chopra, who would examine the following issues:

1. To identify and define parameters (scientific, bio-metric and social) on the basis of which each of the categories of values of forest land should be estimated.
2. To formulate a practical methodology applicable to different bio-geographical zones of India for estimation of the values in monetary terms in respect of each of the above categories of forest values.
3. To illustratively apply this methodology to obtain actual numerical values for different forest types for each bio-geographical zone in the country.
4. To determine on the basis of established principles of public finance, who should pay the costs of restoration and/or compensation with respect to each category of values of forests.
5. Which projects deserve to be exempted from Payment of NPV.
    

To invite views on the above parameters, fifth public hearing of the above committee  was convened in Ahmedabad on 11th of February 2006. A quick meeting of some NGOs was convened by VIKSAT to discuss the above issues for arriving at a common understanding and also developing a common agenda for representation at the public hearing. Based on the discussions in this meeting VIKSAT, on behalf of the group, submitted the following points to the committee during public hearing.  

1. Need to broad base this consultation process of public hearing by involving the primary stakeholders i.e. the forest dwelling communities who are directly affected by the diversion of forestland. This can be done through existing federations, CBOs, local NGOs and other agencies.

2. For calculating the net present value of the forests, the net potential value of the forests for a given time frame should be considered. This is because the Net Potential Values varies from area to area as composition of species too varies. Similarly, the net commercial value also needs to be taken into account.

3. Within the bio-geographical zones, the calculation of unit rate (Rs. per hectare) of the NPV should relate to “forest range”, rather than bio-geographical zones. This makes the NPV calculation more precise for reasons stated in previous point.

4. Public hearings should be made mandatory for giving environment clearance to any activity that would involve removal of trees. However, public hearings need to be made effective. One way is to ensure quorum of stakeholders as per carefully evolved norms. The logic of greater public good (e.g of hydro-electric projects) should not be a reason for exempting payment of NPV because every project has to be viable.

5. Exemption from payment of NPV actually means providing subsidy to the promoter of the project. The argument of non-viability of schemes if NPV is levied actually points to the dire need for improved efficiency, technology and operation.

6. After clearance from the public hearing, the final decision to levy NPV or not should rest with the concerned gram panchayat. The process to be followed could be along lines similar to that of allocation of revenue wasteland on lease where the file moves from the collectorate to the gram sabha for final recommendation and back to the government. Delays should be tackled by smoother implementation procedures. Regarding the rate, it could be decided on the basis of certain norms to be developed which would take into consideration the opportunity cost and missed livelihood opportunities

7. Major part of the funds collected by way of NPV should be ploughed back for environment regulation purposes through such environmental groups. Studies have indicated that per unit cost of raising forests through community protection & management is lesser than raising new plantation blocks.

8. Compensatory Afforestation should be stipulated within the agro-climatic zone in order to maintain ecological balance. Carrying out Afforestation anywhere will not make too much of sense as environmental flows (including surface and subsurface flows) will be disturbed, sometimes to point of no return. Further, not only new plantations, but also forest regeneration through protection by the JFM / CFM groups should be promoted.

9.  GR of Govt. of Gujarat for acquiring Wasteland (2005) allows for acquisition of government wastelands up to a limit of 2000 acres per applicant for commercial purposes/ projects for 20 years. Diversion of land in such scale would clearly increase pressure on the forestlands. This is in opposition to micro plan projects implemented for fringe forest development, which includes activities such as biogas, renewable and low cost energy use etc. Hence, policies should be holistic.

10. In order to improve upon the quality of public hearings, the key points discussed in each of the public hearings should be put up on the web at the earliest and also shared through other means.

To evaluate the compensatory afforestation work done under Sardar Sarovar project (irrespective of year of plantation) and all other developmental projects under which CA has been carried out during the year 2000 – 01 to 2004-05, an MOU was signed between VIKSAT and Chief Conservator of Forest (Central), Ministry of Environment and Forests at Regional Office, Bhopal. The evaluation study is spread across Kachchh, Panchmahals, Dahod, Bharuch, Narmada, Surat, Vadodara, Sabarkantha, Mehsana, Kheda and Ahmedabad districts of Gujarat State.

To facilitate the sampling, plantation details were collected from all the divisions (normal and social) across the above eleven districts. As per these data, 9105 hectares of Compensatory Afforestation is carried out under Sardar Sarovar Project and that under other developmental projects is 8991 hectares.

The scope of the evaluation study includes assessment of survival rate of different species of the plantation, protection and maintenance measures and record keeping at various levels. The study needs to suggest mechanisms for improvement of the plantations, technological and administrative changes required to improve the quality of plantations in general and compensatory afforestation programme in particular.

The procedure requires 10% of the total area under plantation to be sampled on the basis of area planted in forest land, non-forest land and forest ranges against different projects. The field survey is currently in progress in the districts of Kachchh and Sabarkantha, while the schedule of the field visits to other districts have been finalized in consultation with the respective Divisional Conservator of Forests.

Integrated Wasteland Development Programme (IWDP) is being implemented in Sabarkantha district since past several years. Ten new projects have been initiated in Bhiloda taluka of Sabarkantha District under the revised form of IWDP viz. Hariyali project. The project is under implementation since January 2006. As per the Guidelines for the Hariyali project, Bhiloda taluka panchayat has been appointed as the P.I.A. and VIKSAT has been selected as the technical support agency. The 5000 ha watershed is spread across 15 villages. These villages are selected on the basis of the extent of wastelands available in the villages as well as area under irrigation. The same were finalized with the help of detailed satellite map provided by BISAG, Gandhinagar.  

VIKSAT has already appointed three staff members as the Watershed Development Team (WDT) for imparting training and building up the capacity of the implementing agencies (village and taluka panchayat). The facilitating agency will help in the preparation of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) and will also look after the timely implementation of the activities identified under the DPR.

As part of the programme, Gram-sabha were conducted in all the project villages for information dissemination on the various aspects of the programme. Subsequently, panchayat level committees were formed and bank accounts were opened for transfer of funds. Based on the data collected by village level PRAs, Detailed Project Report (DPR) has been prepared and submitted to the district authorities. A brief summary of the activities carried out in the villages is as follows:

Ford Foundation has been one of the important supporters of VIKSAT since 1985 in the field of forest & water resource management. The programmes were implemented through the field offices of Bhiloda and Satlasana. In Bhiloda, Ford Foundation has supported programmes for wasteland development and promotion and strengthening of people’s institutions for the management of natural resource management.

The Programme Officer of Ford Foundation visited Bhiloda to asses the impact created. He had discussions with the members of the Bhiloda Sangh to understand the role of the Sangh in scaling up of the JFM activities. Subsequently field visits were organised to the JFM villages of Wagheshwari and Malekpur to see the regenerated forests and to share the experiences of villagers.