Identity crisis
STATUS: Generates 10 million jobs currently
POTENTIAL: Can generate 8.6 million additional jobs if bamboo plantations are undertaken and high value artisanal and other products marketed
HURDLE: Remains a monopoly of forest departments. Has to be given agriculture status to cultivate, harvest and sell
Sandni, a village in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district, has been waging a decade-old battle with the forest department to resolve a peculiar question: is bamboo a grass or a tree? The answer is crucial for the 400 residents because it means the difference between becoming rich and staying poor.
The villagers protect the nearby forest under the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme. The forest, because of their labour, has a rich cover of bamboo but JFM gives them full legal rights to collect only grass. Botanists classify bamboo as a grass species, but the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 does not. So the villagers are prohibited from harvesting any bamboo, which could be a renewable source of livelihood for the villagers and fetch about Rs 80,000 a year to the village, every year.
Bamboo could be a crucial employer. It has exceptional versatility
Related Content
- Indigenous youth as agents of change: actions of Indigenous youth in local food systems during times of adversity
- Global education monitoring report 2020: inclusion and education- all means all
- The Indian Forest (Amendment) Bill. 2017
- Identity crisis? voluntary carbon crediting and the Paris Agreement
- Securing forests, securing rights: report of the international workshop on deforestation and the rights of forest peoples
- Polishing off the ivory