Restoring forests for restoring community health

Dear Supporter,

As more and more people got vaccinated world over and in India, there was higher level of confidence among the governments to lift restrictions on movement people and other activities on grounds of COVID-19.

We made full use of this opportunity and geared up ourselves for undertaking the work of land restoration in village Mangiwali - our site of intervention. As mentioned in our previous report, our team had identified 25 acres of land in this village through GIS analysis of land use land cover ( LULC). We had now more difficult task on hand- to convince the local community members to get engaged in restoration of their lands. In principle for them, it meant that they will have to lock their land for next 10 years in the hope that they will get sufficient economic benefits as they would otherwise expect from plantation of commercial agroforestry crops- cashew.

Thus we needed to be very careful while selecting the land parcels and tree species for plantation. We chose those land parcels that were close to the forest areas and slightly difficult to access for plantation of commercial crops. Moreover we proposed that tree species locally known as Karanj ( Pongamia pinnata) - a multi purpose tree species will be planted. Our team made a detailed presentation on economical and ecological benefits of Karanj tree to the key stakeholders from the village and distributed copies of the outreach material prepared in local language for this purpose among the beneficiaries.

Pongamia pinnata ( Karanj)- is fast growing tree species commonly found across India and some countries in south east asia and pacific. It is an excellent candidate for land restoration as it fixes nitrogen from the air in the soil and thus improves the quality of the soil. On the other hand, it has tap root and thus it requires minimum watering during the periods of stress. As regards its economic benefits, its seed produce non-edible oil in good quantity ( 20-33%). Moreover this oil finds application in medicine, cosmetic and bio-fuel industry. With growing awareness about climate change, more and more governments, companies, people across the world are searching for sustainable materials for greening their carbon footfprint. As a result, demand for seed oil of Pongamia pinnata will only be growing over the next decade. 

We made a commitment that we will buy the entire production of seeds from the trees at economically attractive price and ensure that local communities get livelihood opportunities during plantation and maintainence of the saplings over the next 10 years. Moreover if the seed production indeed goes up significantly, we will set up oil production unit in the village. 

This convinced the communities very much and thus 3 farmers came forward and offered 10 acres of their degraded land located near forest areas for restoration. We had on purpose selected those land parcels as we had decided to create a community buffer. 

All in all everything fell in place and we could plant 2000 saplings of Pongamia pinnata trees on these land parcels.

Some 10 community members from village Mangiwali participated in the plantation and received daily wages for a period of one week. 

We are aware that this is first small step in restoring degradaed land and creating economic benefits from this long process but we gained significant confidence by winning trust of local communities in this long journey.

In the next year, we will expand the plantation on 25 acreas and complete the target of planting 10,000 saplings. 

We thank you for your continued interest in and support to this initiative.

Best regards

Suchitra Naidu

Dear Supporter,

The past quarter has seen the second wave of COVID-19 grip India and we have gone back to a complete ban on travel and strict lockdowns. Even though we could not spend time on the field, one good thing is that we have been able to articulate the conservation challenge for Mangavli site and develop workable conservation strategy. 

We decided that restoring the forest land by creating a community buffer of native tree species on the existing scrubland will generate ecological as well as social benefits in the long run.  

Thus we set up a nursery of native species at two sites one at our field station in Sadavali and other at the Mangavali- the place of our intervention. We have plans to plant at least 10000 saplings covering 25 acres of scrub land by the end of this year. The target of 25 acres though small will contribute to bringing back the past richness of the land on minimum 10% of total degraded area identified in this village. 

The species for plantation have been very carefully selected - taking into consideration their role in the primary objective of this campaign - reducing the interaction between animals using these forests and the people dwelling around them. 

The effort here is to plant species which will form a huge canopy, thus creating a safe habitat for arboreal animals and birds - like the Shekru ( Ratufa indica) and the Great Hornbill - and reduce the need for them to come down in search of food and habitat. The tree species - Termialia bellerica (Beheda), Alstonia scolaris (Saptaparni), Mammea suriga (Surangi), Pongamia pinnata (Karanja), Sapindus mukorossi (Reetha), Pterocarpus marsupium (Beeja) and Gmelina arborea (Shivan) - all of which are canopy forming species and not under threat of browsing by herbivores, and have unique individual impact on the health of the forest in addition to providing economic benefits to local communities from collection and sale of fruits and seeds.

For example, Beeja and Karanja are nitrogen-fixing species which improves the quality of soil. Surangi and Saptaparni produce nectar rich flowers and are favourite among Honeybees and thus is important for preservation of one of the most important ecosystem services - pollination. Reetha, Beheda and Karanja are economically important species which can pave way for a symbiotic relationship between the forests and the forest-dependant communities in the future. 

It is important to understand that at 25 acres of forest restoration every year, it will take more than a decade to convert the entire scrub land mapped by us into a canopy forest. Restoration is slow process as far as its ecological and economic impacts are concerned. Thus we are starting on a smaller scale in the first year and will analyse the response from the community and land.  

I hope that our approach offers a critical perspective about the nature of the challenge in front of us and why we must make the slow ecological process of restoration economically attractive to the local communities. With an experience of over 20 years in restoration on our side, we are confident of bringing the necessary change in the landscape of Mangavli village!

Thank you and speak to you all soon again.  

Suchitra