Forest Conservation
INCENTIVE-BASED CONSERVATION
Making conservation a viable land use option for local communities is a serious sustainability challenge in the globalized world. AERF has successfully tested incentive based mechanisms using Conservation Agreements in the Northern Western Ghats . These agreements ensured safeguarding of biodiversity rich forests on privately owned lands of poor farmers from Northern Western Ghats and could provide tangible economic benefits to the poor land owners. Forests in the Northern Western Ghats are facing threats in the absence of any legal protection from Government. In order to avoid deforestation and conserve important plant areas, AERF launched India’s first ever incentive-based forest conservation initiative in 2007 for saving forests on private lands in this region
Under the 'Forests for Air' project with Daikin, AERF aims to increase the reach, scope and efficiency of this strategy. Thus, we targeted the ESA villages in the buffer zone of Sahyadri Tiger Reserve. The buffer zone acts as a crucial area for wildlife that are moving between protected areas. 179 villages fall under the zone.
We started by developing a questionnaire survey to understand the community perception of loss of biodiversity and the disappearance of forests. Based on the criteria of remoteness and elevation, 9 villages were chosen for Stage 1 of the survey. Community meetings were held at Bamnoli, Palu, Khadi Kolwan, Anaderi, Devade, Kirbet, Terye and Hedali as part of the feasibility study. These meetings focussed on the following aspects:
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Existing forest governance
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Information about the Conservation Agreements model
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Use of forests
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Benefits that the communities expect
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Discussing any other concerns on the community's part.
After the discussion with the community members our team conducted a simple forest assessment to gauge the conservation value of the forest in order to understand the possibilities of value chains and sustainable NTFP collection.
Under this initiative, we have successfully conserved 1200 acres of forest land for 10 years and provided the owners of these forests in Lovale, Katavli, Anaderi, Bamnoli, Devade and Ujgaon with direct and indirect benefits.
nursery development and reforestation
The forests owned by communities in the Northern Western Ghats are facing additional threat due to spread of cashew nut and teak trees by people using subsidies. As a result, the health of the forests is deteriorating and is failing in ecosystem services such as pollination by insects and provision from natural water sources. In order to improve the continuity that allows management of a wide region and enables animals to cross from one important biologically diversified region to another, we have taken up ecological restoration and reforestation of degraded forest patches through plantation of native tree species which are grown and cared after in our own nurseries. 2 seedling nurseries were created at the field station at Devrukh, Ratnagiri. In all, 3200 seedlings convering 36 species were raised, which included economically valuable tree species along with species which have high conservation value and whose fruit is food for important birds such as hornbills which help in forest regeneration through seed dispersal.
In our Kosumb nursery, AERF gathered a total of 869 seedlings in 6 important species including Beheda (Terminalia bellerica) and Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) since it is believed that gathering of naturally sprouting seedlings is an effective way to grow rare indigenous tree species.
In June 2017, our team also planted 617 native saplings of 31 different species at 5 locations in the Sangameshwar block. The plantation sites were carefully selected based on the reforestation requirements and the creation of buffer zones around forests under conservation agreements
We also undertook a notable restoration exercise at the sacred grove in Kulye village which covers about 25 acres. The site contains many important tree species which are home and food for other important bird and animal species. However the sacred grove faces destruction due to activities such as building canals, cattle grazing and logging. After a few meetings with the villagers, in July 2017, we planted 55 seedlings of indigenous tree species. Furthermore, we were joined by the Earth Expedition India participants for the year in our endeavour! In addition to tree plantation, we conducted surveys to determine the health of the planted seedlings as well as the state of the natural regeneration of the land adjacent to the tree plantation site. The survey showed that there are at least 350 naturally growing seedlings in 26 varieties that have grown to at least 5 feet. This reiterates just how important it is to conserve these sacred groves in order to regenerate biodiversity.
