Community Forestry and Wild Forests Management

Community Forestry and Wild Forests Management

Community Forestry and Wild Forests Management project consists of our various community and social forestry projects that support environment conservation, food security, fodder production, wildlife conservation, disaster mitigation etc.

EduCARE India has set up several projects in Forestry in its different clusters:

Re-forestation for disaster mitigation

Community Forestry and Wild Forests ManagementThe forests around Naddi hills are put under a lot of pressure as the local trees are used as fuel-wood and fodder for the cattle. Consequently, in some areas, the forest has completely disappeared and the soil is severely eroded. Three sub-projects are currently running to try to reverse this process:

Green gift project

The most efficient way to protect forests around Naddi is to make people aware of their inherent value. To do so, volunteers mostly work with the children as they can impact the behaviour of their parents. Children in the community are given fruit trees on his/her birthday.  The families pledge to buy and plant a new tree for each birthday of their children.  These trees are then planted around the community. Most of these trees are fruit tree orchards to contribute to improve the diet of local communities, including poor.

Sustainable Wild Forests management project

soapnutPeople go in the forests every week to collect wood for their cattle and for fuel. Currently, no data exists on the forest areas which are exploited, or on the impact of the exploitation. Our project is therefore to understand which part of the forests are exploited and how, so that we can develop sustainable community-based forest management. It also involves making villagers aware of the issues related to forests and wildlife through workshops and activities. Wildlife is rich, but unfortunately quite endangered. Thus in the future, EduCARE India would like to work on a program of rehabilitation for the declining wildlife population too.

Herbal and Medicinal plants project

EduCARE India would like to set up a soap nut tree plantation as these nuts are used a lot in India to produce soap. Producing nuts and selling them would provide an sustainable income for the communities involved.

Bamboo Plantation

bamboo

  • Set up bamboo plantations in the communities and migrant camp where we are working.
  • Bamboos are heavily used for construction and can be a good source of income for these marginalised groups.

Overall, the forestry project goal involves five primary objectives:

  1. establishing community based forest management of forested areas for wildlife conservation and of rehabilitation for threatened wildlife populations.
  2. reforestation of unsustainable forested areas with a combination of native species for disaster mitigation, and community forest use
  3. community outreach and education in herbal, medicinal and commercial use tree plantations including bamboo plantations
  4. the creation of social forestry and fruit tree orchards to improve the diet of local poor and migrant communities, and
  5. forestry activities for ecological landscaping