0019-B1

Reclamation of a Degraded Forest Through 'Investment in People' - A Success Story

Ajay Sehgal^[1]

Abstract

This project was carried out within the framework of a World Bank forestry project. The study deals with the degraded forestland, which had a very high pH and exchangeable sodium and presented an appearance of greyish white efflorescence of salt on the surface. The soil had a slow infiltration rate and hydraulic conductivity. Furthermore, the locals had a large number of unproductive cattle. The basic strategy to reclaim the land was to "invest in people rather than in land". Consequently, all activities were carried out by motivating, training and educating locals and introducing "Shramdan" or voluntary service. The planting techniques used included auger pit holes and trenches of different sizes, which were subsequently filled with the desired quantity of gypsum, farmyard manure and vermiculite. Species of Prosopis spicigera, Tamarix articulata, Prosopis juliflora, Acacia nilotica and Eucalyptus "Hybrid", etc were planted as per the local agroclimatic conditions and other site factors. Through biogas technology, very good organic manure, improved rural sanitation and healthcare, and more importantly prevention of deforestation, maintenance of ecological balance was achieved. A Semi-continuous type of biogas plant, which had distinct advantages, such as constant rate of gas production, less retention time and cost as well as space effective, was adopted for field applications. Later the soil analysis revealed decrease in pH, increases in the amount of organic matter and improved soil permeability. Various optimum sustainable strategies by which this highly degraded forestland was reclaimed not only improved the socio-economic condition of the locals, but also improved the soil environment with consequential improvement in productivity and the ecological stability and development of the area on a sustainable basis. Observations on the corrective measures will be discussed.

1. Introduction

Simultaneous shrinking of natural resource base and explosion of population are the first and the most important basic agrarian problems of the new millenium in India. Consequently pressure on farm and forestland has increased. In India, of the total of 329 M ha land 80 Mha suffers from water erosion, 20 Mha by wind erosion and desertification, 7 Mha by salt contamination, 6 Mha by water logging and 4 Mha by ravines. About 40 Mha of land have reached almost irreversible limits of degradation and are very difficult to revive. Seventy per cent of the rain-fed arable land, which is variously degraded, contributes less than 40 per cent to national food production (Grewal et al., 2000). Poor land management practices coupled with denudation of forest areas has led to this state As a consequence or cause of it, the forest wealth of the country has also gone too low. Unfortunately, the rate of deforestation far exceeds that of reforestation (Yadav et al., 1998). Unrestricted tree felling, overgrazing, deliberate fires and clearing of land for agriculture are the undisputed apparent reasons. Further erratic distribution of rainfall, lack of irrigation facilities, urge for over productivity through energy subsidies and small land holdings have further compounded the problem. Soil, the basic life support system, if once degraded, results in slow and difficult recovery. For the forest resource, the identified life support system other than soil is water. If the forests are rich and managed, the soil remains conserved and if the soil is protected, it invariably would support good vegetation and ultimately the forest eco-system. Other environmental parameters follow suit. Therefore, in order to improve and develop, we have to look into the life support system - the soil and water together. Without water, forest cover cannot survive and without vegetation water regime cannot sustain.

The deterioration in the soil fertility, productivity and land qualities have become a matter of serious concern. The Forest and water resources management has received top priority to improve the socio - economic condition of the locals. Lack of fodder for sizable animal population was a problem having serious repercussions on land degradation.

This paper attempts to share the success model of reclaiming degraded forestland through people's participation. Impact of environmentally sound, technologically feasible, cost effective, socially acceptable and community driven silvopastoral management on an area which was extremely sodic and where profitable agriculture was not warranted but had great potential for providing fuel, fodder and timber to locals, was taken. The study area lies in protected forests of North India. About 5 decades ago it was a fertile land. However due to unsustainable land use it lost it's fertility character and thus productivity. So when sustainable management of the area was taken up, the soil had a very high pH and exchangeable sodium and presented an appearance of greyish white efflorescence of salt on the surface. It had slow infiltration rate and hydraulic conductivity. It often developed thin cracks and became cloddy in dry conditions and sticky when wet. Most serious impediment to root development was the cemented bed of 'Kankar' in lower depth. With no sustainable source of fodder for large unproductive cattle, providing them fodder was a major problem. Due to religious sentiments it was not advisable to get rid off this unproductive cattle. So the only way out was a two-way strategy. To improve the soil fertility of the area and secondly to use non-conventional energy resources by using cattle waste so that the villagers become self sufficient on domestic energy requirement front.

2. Materials and methods

2 (a) Action: - Emanating from the past experience a little departure that involved the participatory approach was adopted.

The basic strategy to reclaim the land was to 'invest in people than in land'. This was done by motivating, training and educating locals. Consequently all forestry related activities were carried out by the locals. Due to the carelessness and ignorance among the locals, about the' real loss', land degradation had been increasing consistently. It prompted the need of creating better understanding among the locals about the importance of forests, forage security, fuel security, food security, ecological security and social security. Problems of locals were not addressed and there were other unclaimed reasons.

The issues faced were: -

a) Meeting the fodder needs of the local cattle
b) Meeting the fuel needs of the locals
c) Checking the soil loss
d) Lack of funds and infrastructure including manpower
e) Bureaucratic hurdles

The best alternative thought of was "investment in people is better than any other investment." In any of the participatory activity, for their self improvement people have to decide their needs for development in their own way and in their own place.

Community participation during planning, designing and execution of degraded forestland improvement and subsequent management and implementation by the locals was the key to success.

2(b) Methodology: Most affected areas of the division and the competent forest guard/official with regard to degraded Forestland improvement were identified. Village Forest Committee (VFC) of the locals was constituted. The total number of members of the VFCs was kept at 14 plus forest guard as the member secretary. The sex ratio was kept at 1:1 (young were preferred over old). The executive committee was constituted in the following manner: -

• A forest guard or a representative of the forest department served as the member secretary who was answerable to the concerned Range forest officer.

• Three members from village panchayat who were sensitized to the menace of land degradation and willing to actively participate in all the activities leading to improvement in ecology of the area-a sustainable parameter-were identified.

• Five members from the local mahila mandal (Women NGO)

• Five members from yuvak mandal (Youth NGO)

After the EC is constituted Pradhan, (chairman), & Deputy Pradhan (Deputy chairman) were elected

(EC) of the respective VFC in each village

2(b) OPERATION

• To initiate the task "Shramdan" - -(Voluntary Service) concept was introduced. During the 'soilwork' and "plantation seasons" the frequency of the meetings was made weekly where VFCs of the neighboring areas were also invited.

• Though VFCs exercised full control over the degraded forestland improvement issues in their village however technical matters were brought at the divisional level and consulted with the senior officers.

• On the day of the weekly meeting - - 'shramdan' full day exercise under leadership of the head of the division was rendered along with the VFC and the villagers.

• In the morning stress was laid to have one to one meeting with the villagers to answer to their quarries to their satisfaction.

• After formal and informal question hour, VFC along with the villagers were led to specific area for "on the spot demo" of the methodology to be adopted for the improvement of degraded forestlands including 'social fencing' - - protection of the areas from grazing by the villagers themselves - and the use of bio-gas plants for meeting their daily energy needs and in turn making them self-sufficient.

• The fuel use pattern of North India is as given in (Table 1) was the main yardstick for designing the suitable bio gas plant for the villagers. Keeping in view the saying 'seeing is believing' the villagers were given the live demonstration of the working of Bio gas plant.

• A Semi-continuous type of biogas plant which had distinct advantages such as constant rate of gas production, less retention time, more efficient decomposition, cost as well as space effective, and operationally convenient with less labour was adopted for field applications.

  'Deenabandhu model' which is just the improved version of 'Janta model' was put in practice.

  The drawings and the dimensions of this biogas plant model including salient features of construction and the quality and quantity of materials shall be discussed during the presentation

• Technique of nursery raising was also demonstrated and they were encouraged to start their own nurseries

• Planting techniques, which included augur pit holes and trenches of different sizes, which were to be eventually filled with desired quantity of gypsum, farmyard manure and vermiculite were demonstrated to the villagers. During the actual operations it was observed that addition of small dose of nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers yielded as good results as in the case of replacement of sodic soils with normal soils which is not only costly but time consuming also.

• The locals were also given preliminary lectures on social fencing, bio-fencing, stall feeding, soil treatment, planting of forage trees e.g. Leaucaena, Poplar, Sesbania etc, and preparation of organic manure (rate of growth was evaluated and upto 65% of the increment was allowed to be removed). Rationing of fuelwood & fodder were also carried out.

• Feed back from the VFCs became the main source of indicator of the interest of the villagers and their involvement in the activity.

• The availability of abundant fodder and the self-sufficiency in the domestic energy requirements due to installation of biogas plants led to motivation among the neighbouring areas and consequential enthusiasm resulted in "chain reaction".

• After a good mental and physical exercise for the whole day, the villagers were shown video films on wildlife, ecology improvement and nature conservation for their relaxation in the night.

• This exercise was repeated everywhere in the division in the different ranges.

Basically the interest of the foresters lies mainly in the sustainable development of the forest trees and that of the farmers in grasses. Effort was to maintain the balance between tree and fodder production. Fodder yielders (multipurpose) were preferred over timber yielders keeping in view the scarcity of the fodder in the area. (Eucalyptus was discouraged). The increased availability of grasses from the land has direct bearing on the people's participation in the government programs. Since if the number of trees and bushes increase disproportionately the grass yield would tend to decrease. So, the requirement of reasonable number of trees per hectare for achieving a given level of grass production was of great importance. Broadly the requirement of grass of the villages was calculated and accordingly2000 plants/hectare of different species were planted that were raised by villagers in their own 'Kisan' nurseries. Species such as Prosopis cinireria, Tamarix articulata, Prosopis juliflora, Acacia nilotica, Populus deltoides etc were planted. Eulaliopsis binata (bhabbar grass) was planted in the understorey of these trees. Community based degraded forestland management was very cost effective as compared to the traditional methods. To know the improvement in the ecological health of the area vegetation analysis of the area was carried out by the analysis of the herb, shrub and tree component growing in the area in terms of density, abundance, frequency, and relative dominance. Finally, evaluation of Phytosociological parameters such as Importance Value Index (IVI), Species diversity indices (Simpson's Index of dominance, Shannon's index and Diversity numbers, Index of evenness, Richness Index and Index of Similarity) was done using formulae given in Table 2.

3. Results

The area was rehabilitated and it also improved the socio-economic conditions of the locals as well as the soil health with consequential improvement in the ecology of the area. Survival rate of the plantation at the end of third year was 60-65% and the soil analyses revealed decrease in pH, increase in the amount of organic matter and improved soil permeability. With the availability of water from the catchment and the improved soil conditions, there was manifold increase in the crop production. The grass production in the area increased to an extent that it required professional management. The village forest committee was further given the work of distributing this among the villagers according to the efforts put in by the family to improve the area and the size of the landholding of the family. The VFC 'S were dragged to manage the distribution to eliminate the contractors. The vegatational analysis revealed healthy ecological indices, diversity of vegetation and thus the ecological stability. Increased availability of fodder, economic consideration, social compulsions and self restraint brought dramatic changes in the animal husbandry sector too. Socio-economic indicators like annual milk production in the villages increased and number of cows, buffaloes and bullocks increased. The availability of green fodder as well as dry fodder increased substantially. Further due to the increase in feed and fodder availability, migration of buffaloes and cows decreased. Reduction in grazing and migration, introduction of stall-feeding and change in the composition of the cattle population in favor of the better breeds increased the dung production in the villages. So the availability of dung for the use in biogas plants and use of the digested slurry for improving the soil fertility also increased substantially. Biogas technology, being a decentralized system, made the rural households self sufficient on domestic energy requirement. The savings on the forests and there by the ecology is another bonus. Indirect benefits from the biogas technology (a renewable source of energy) such as saving of time in cooking, enhancement of life of vessels used for cooking since there is no blackening of the vessels, improvement in the health of housewives especially from lung and eye trouble and also the improvement in the rural sanitation became significant. More important in today's environmental situation are the social benefits such as saving of forests and thus ecology and improvement in the soil fertility etc.

Due to the involvement of locals, there is a perceptible change among the behavior of the society which becomes more 'close knit' as friendly/participatory spirit is inculcated. The VWC'S so formed were utilized for other social programs like forest fire management too. Besides responsibility of the government gets reduced to a great extent due to the active participation of the locals.

4 (a) Success parameter indicators -The success of this project could be attributed mainly to the people's participation through VFCs for managing vegetation, soil and water resources. Besides there has been a general improvement in the standard of living of the villagers. Assets possessed by the families like sewing machines, scooters, televisions, ceiling fans were increased manifold due to the enhanced income from animal husbandry works. The average annual income of the whole village from all sources also showed increase. There was a sustainable improvement in ecological health of the area.

4 (b) INCENTIVES REWARDS AND DETERRENTS

• Appreciation letters/rewards from the department for the most effective VFC
• Scholarships to the youth for excellent participation and motivation to others

• Free ration for a week to the "best village" which worked most sincerely for the reclamation of the degraded forest land

As a deterrent for those, who indulged in anti environment practices, social and economic sanctions were imposed by the VFCs in the shape of not inviting them to community functions and ignoring them in personal terms as well.

5. Policy Recommendations

Community based approach is tailored to the dire needs of very poor and sensitive section of the society and hence need undivided attention of the department officials. But if the interest and approach of the officials remain casual or short-lived then there is little likelihood of success. Since the orthodox villagers are prone to rivalries, dedicated efforts are required to persuade people to join hands for common cause. It takes sufficient efforts of the officers to make rapport with the locals and generally it is 'personality oriented'. So, it should be ensured that a leader of the project stays at that place for a some fixed tenure and he should also groom a deputy who should be able to take the reins of the project if the leader has to be shifted to some other place by the government due to unavoidable circumstances. The contractors if dragged in against the wishes of the people may naturally shake the pillars of faith.

6. Suggestions/gaps in information

What should be the most reasonable number of trees for optimizing bhabbar and forage grass yield has still not been experimentally worked out for different tree species and soil and slope conditions. However, Systematic studies are required to be carried out to: -

• Work out the best tree-grass associations keeping in view of the twin objectives of optimizing wood and grass production as well as water yield.

• Develop the marketing infrastructure for the resources generated from the area

• Strengthening extension education strategy

7. Conclusions

The present century should be devoted to the use of forests for their indirect environmental, social and recreational functions ensuring the welfare of the locals. The need of empowering the locals especially the woman and making them accountable too should be the area of thrust. Community based degraded forest land management seems the only sustainable and cost effective model system for the locals under Joint Forest Management policy.

Fuel use pattern in North Indian Rural sector Table 1

Average time of using different fuels

Table 2 Formulae used for calculation of various diversity parameters

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