Community Groups

Child well-being in an unpredictable world

The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …

Miles apart

Community forestry has been identified as the only viable forest management strategy in many developing countries. To this effect, both India and Nepal have launched programmes. But while in Nepal forests are on the road to recovery, severe limitations come in the way of managing forests successfully in India. Some …

Policies with a difference

INDIA: A colonial system of forest management left behind by the British NEPAL: Forest regulation and management is hardly 50 years old. INDIA: Ninety-five per cent of forests is owned and managed by state forest departments NEPAL: There is a clear demarcation between various types of forests INDIA: Forestry is …

Hills vs terai

HILLS: Old, stable settlement TERAI: Scattered settlement, more scope for farming HILLS: Population is homogeneous TERAI: Heterogeneous population, ethnic diversity HILLS: Indigenous management practices TERAI: Limited indigenous practices HILLS: Widespread access to forests TERAI: Greatly variable access to forests HILLS: Farming systems dependent on TERAI: Farming systems less dependent forests …

CFM has changed the concept of community life

What is the greatest benefit you have derived from community forest management? There is a centuries-old monastery near our village. It was robbed of its sanctity after the forest around it was denuded. Once the community regenerated the forest, the spiritual splendour that is associated with a religious place was …

Reaping the benefits

For 30 years, 60-year-old Gyan Bahadur Karki, along with his fellow villagers, has been protecting a 24-hectare (ha) patch of forest in the vicinity of his village Kahnu, near Pokhra. He has been sourcing his fodder and fuelwood needs from the forests since then. "But there is a big difference …

UNITED NATIONS

In an effort to help developing countries compete more effectively in the world starch markets, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has urged research institutes to study various properties of starch. FAO began studying starch properties a year ago and is now working in research institutes in Italy …

Words of wisdom

traditional knowledge refers to the unique local knowledge existing within and developed around the specific conditions of people indigenous to a particular geographic area. All members of a community have traditional knowledge about the ecology: elders, women, men and children. However, the quantity and quality of traditional knowledge possessed by …

Where communities care: community-based wildlife and ecosystem management in South Asia

This report is the outcome of the South Asian Regional Review of Community Involvement in Wildlife Management. This was conducted as part of a global series of regional reviews for the IIED's project "Evaluation Eden: Assessing the Impacts of Community Wildlife Management". This report provides an ecological and socio-economic profile …

Communities to the rescue

community participation can work wonders , especially when it comes to tackling diseases like malaria. The Zimbabwe experience in recent years shows that, in what otherwise appears to be a hopeless situation, communities can reverse the fortunes of thousands of people susceptible to the disease. Also referred to as a …

Fuel for thought

in the 1980s, a few institutional and community biogas plants were set up in some villages by cooperating centres of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research ( icar )-sponsored All India Coordinated Research Project. Islampur village in Bhopal was one of the villages selected. As in any other village, cowdung …

Moses of Longleng

consider this. A small sleepy town on the top of a hill in the north of Nagaland. The mention of the town's name is met by blank looks for it is isolated not only geographically, but also from civilisation. None of the modern means of communication exists and, to top …

Return of the woods

the struggle against the British which finally ended in Independence plunged the villagers of Seed, Rajasthan, into troubled times. After over two decades of helpless suffering, it took a Gandhian from the neighbouring village of Sethwana to dispel the clouds of despondency. The simple step involved converting Seed to a …

Message in a baton

In Kesharpur, a tiny village in the foothills of Orissa’s Nayagarh district, villagers search for a baton in their frontyard every morning. Two families find a baton each. The batons decide their day’s work

Model development

In every village, a committee is elected by the people. There is a blanket ban on felling and stray grazing. The committee supervises these bans and resolves all conflicts. It also collects fines, decided by the villagers, for any violation of the protection rules. Similarly, it decides the village peoples' …

At loggerheads

Orissa's forest protection movement, which started in different places at different times, has become so strong that neither do forest officials find it easy to enter the forests protected by communities nor has the government been able to implement its conservation programmes. But the government refuses to acknowledge their efforts. …

Giridhar Gamanga / Orissa Chief Minister

What is your concept of conservation when the state is facing severe degradation of the forests and other environmental problems? My concept is very clear: there has to be a fine balance between development and ecology. But whatever policies we formulate must be accepted by the people. We need development …

On The Warpath

A poll issue Villagers put forward a charter of six demands to political leaders, from village to state-level, seeking rights over the forests they have created it's a battle between the haves and the have-nots. At stake is 400,000 hectares (ha) of forest land in Orissa

The fall and rise of the woods

1920s: The British introduced railway lines in Orissa. Commercial exploitation of forests began in a big way. 1930s: In Dhenkanal, people revolted against the king for rights over the forests they traditionally protected. Lapanga village in Sambalpur became the first recorded village to protect forests.The king of Mayurbhanj initiated JFM …

Arsenic cleanup

india's first mass arsenic removal community-based programme to provide safe drinking water to more than 400 affected villages of West Bengal will begin in October. The Rs 9-crore project will be executed by the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health ( aiih&ph;). A large chunk of aid will …

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