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<<Forestry>>
<<Land
& Water Management>>
<<Agriculture>>
<<RF
Management>>
<<R
& D Programmes
>>
Programmes
After
independence, rapid industrialization led to increased
pressure on India’s forests. India is the second most populous
country, after china, with a population of more than a
billion. But the per capita forestland available is one of the
lowest in the world. About 70% of the biomass needs of India
are met from the existing forests, common lands, and
wastelands. To improve the per capita availability of forests,
and for ecological and socio-economic reasons, it is necessary
to regenerate the denuded forest and bring the degraded
village commons and wastelands under vegetation.
India has a long history of traditional
institutions and systems of forests protection and management,
which declined over time. Forests areas of Gujarat, spread in
18,868 sq Km comprises only 9.9% of the geographical area of
the sate. Actual forest cover of the state is 12,578 sq km,
which constitute 6.4% of its geographical area. Of the forest
a under the legal status-Reserve forest constitutes maximum
(71%), followed by unclassified forest (24%) and protected
forests (5%)
VIKSAT has initiated various activities to
enhance the productivity of forests and to meet the needs of
the local people through various awareness and training
programme.
VIKSAT’s mission is to work for sustainable development
and management of natural resources through people’s
participation. We have promoted, nurtured and developed a
number of people’s institutions (PIs) in four regions of
Gujarat. With our continuous efforts for the capacity
building of these institutions, they have today acquired
the ability to function independently with minimum outside
support.
These PIs are formed with the objective of empowering local
communities in natural resource management in such a way that
they can make equitable use of these resources for their own
economic development. Today people in rural areas have
identified their needs and with our guiding support have
formed many PIs and in the process have learnt about all the
essentials like planning, book keeping, financial management
and trouble shooting.
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