Forest produce

About: Forest produce is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 137 publications have been published within this topic receiving 891 citations.

Production and Utilization of Bamboos

Abstract: Bamboo, a versatile multi-purpose forest produce, plays a vital role in the world's industrial and domestic economies. The lives of people, both urban and rural, rich and poor, are so intrinsically dependent upon bamboo and its variegated uses, that it is not hard to conceive the people's plight without this useful commodity. Easy to propagate, it is exploitable at quick rotations, say of 3-4 years. Besides naturally occurring in the forest, bamboo is extensively planted by the villagers on their marginal lands. Considering these areas and the forest areas, the estimated present production and utilisation of bamboos in India is about 9.5 million metric tonnes annually, providing a direct employment of about 71.25 million man-days for harvesting alone. The paper discusses: cultivation/plantation, management, treatment of bamboo before utilisation, and species-wise utilisation in detail. The progress research in the utilisation of bamboos at the F.R.I. has also been briefly discussed.

Women in forestry in India

Abstract: For projects to secede, it is essential to document women’s relationship to forests -- in the context of their roles in different farming and food supply systems, domestic tasks, and income-earning activities. Such documentation would reveal ways to generate employment and income women. The minor forest product economy, for example, which is dominated by women, has never been the focus of government policy or a specific component of social forestry projects. Social forestry projects tend to be oriented to cash crops, which mostly benefit men. The fuelwood and fodder crisis has focused on problems of domestic subsistence; planners have been blinded to women's equally important role in the nondomestic forest economy. Forest-based activities are often poor women’s main—sometimes only—source income, particularly where women have no property rights in land. Women who have property rights only in livestock also depend on fodder, a product of forests and common property resources. Forests also provide food, medicines, and other products useful to poor people, especially in times of famine. The urban poor bear the brunt of the fuelwood crisis, especially as fuel prices rise. But the headloading of wood (collecting wood for sale) by rural women partly reflects their lack of jobs and income. Headloaders meet a crucial energy need but also contribute to the degradation of forests. This degradation can be reversed only by increasing biomass production and generating more jobs and income for women. Social forestry programs must be broadened to include women, watershed management, the management of common property resources, and such related enterprises as animal husbandry. Women can and do carry out most forestry tasks, even such arduous ones as pit digging watering, and soil work. Women involved in small-scale forest based industries -- such as bidi-rolling (indigenous leaf cigarettes) and basket-making -- must be helped to improve their skills and to learn to manage the entire process from collection to processing and sale. Rights to forest produce must be more clearly delineated. Women have successfully organized groups, reclaimed degraded land, plated forests on it, and managed forests jointly. Rights in degraded land allotted for afforestation can most easily be enforced and protected by organized women. The most important help nongovernment organizations can provide is to strengthen existing women's organizations and help build new ones. Collective organizations seem best adapted to exploit such development facilities as credit, extension advice, and access to new technology, raw materials sols in bulk, and the purchase and maintenance of labor-saving devices.

Viable Agroforestry Models and their Economics in Yamunanagar District of Haryana and Haridwar District of Uttaranchal

Abstract: In India, natural forests are being conserved primarily for the environmental benefits. Serious efforts are also being done to plant large number of trees outside forest under social forestry programs to increase the tree cover and fulfill demand of various forest produce required by the people and forest based industries. Agricultural fields are one of the potential areas, where large scale planting of trees can be taken up along with the agricultural crops. Agroforestry models adopted by the farmers in Haryana and Uttaranchal states of India are highly lucrative, therefore, attracting farmers in a big way. NPV for different models on six years rotation varies from Rs. 26,626 to Rs. 72,705 ha -1 yr -1 whereas Benefit-Cost ratio and Internal Rate of Return vary from 2.35 to 3.73 and 94% to 389% respectively. Agroforestry has not only uplifted socioeconomic status of the farmers but also contributed towards overall development of the region.

Applying the Sustainable Livelihood Approach to Joint Forest Management Projects in India

Abstract: SUMMARY The long-term success of Joint Forest Management (JFM) appears doubtful unless people's dependence on forests is reduced to non-timber forest produce, small timber, firewood for bonafide domestic use and indirect benefits. For this the issues of poverty alleviation, sustainable development, empowerment and forest regeneration have to be dealt with simultaneously. While elucidating the concept and approach of Sustainable Livelihoods (SL), this paper makes a case for its adoption in forest areas. Further it analyses the Tamilnadu Afforestation Project and its evolution into a Sustainable Livelihood Project. The paper concludes with the observation that JFM projects can be converted into SL projects through enhanced outlay for buffer zones, integration of line departments, increasing the duration and decentralisation of more powers to JFM institutions.

Conservation prospects for lion‐tailed macaques in Karnataka, India

Abstract: A substantial proportion of the wild lion-tailed macaque population occurs in Karnataka State, India. In this paper, problems of protecting the macaques and their habitats are discussed. Fairly large portions of the Karnataka habitat remain available. These are free of large-scale shrinkage in area, but are experiencing deterioration in quality due to pressures from enclaves of human settlements, from developmental projects, and from timber/minor forest produce extraction. Illegal hunting is another threat to the population. A pragmatic, cost-effective approach to conservation of rain forest habitats, centered around protection of nature reserves, with the lion-tailed macaque as a flagship species, as opposed to a strategy based on captive propagation, is advocated.