Project districts:	Udaipur
Forest types:	Dry Deciduous, Tropical Thorn Forest, Scrub Forest
River basin:	Mansi and Wakal
Village institutions:	26
Area under protection:	2,277 hectares
Total households:	3,377

Description

We began working in 1999 with the tribal communities inhabiting the foothills and valleys of the Aravalli hill ranges that pass through Udaipur District, which lies in the southern part of Rajasthan.

The loss of forests, fragmentation of landholdings, soil erosion, low agricultural productivity of the farmlands and the need for cash incomes for an increasing population have meant that the tribal community that once managed to sustain themselves by practicing rainfed agriculture and through hunting and collection of forest produce are now to a great extent dependent on government run cash or food-for-work programmes and migration for their sustenance.

The predominance of forestlands offers scope to undertake regeneration through Joint Forest Management (JFM) arrangements. At the same time the tribal communities have evolved systems of access to forests and forest produce that go well beyond revenue and forest boundaries drawn up for administrative convenience. We are working on integrating the complex scenario of multiple user regimes and overlapping boundaries with the administrative guidelines of the JFM programme. An arrangement that recognizes all the traditional “hakdars” (right holders) and accommodates them within the Village Forest Protection and Management Committee (VFPMC) has emerged as an appropriate form of institution.

We have been active participants in the concerted effort being made to effect necessary changes in the guidelines of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme. Among the issues we have raised were the absence of clarity of period of tenure in the existing guidelines, the need to ensure fair returns for the community on the non-timber forest produce collected and the need to explore the possibilities of membership of an individual in multiple JFM institutions based on the customary norms of rights and access.

Complementing our work on regeneration of degraded forestlands we are also implementing activities that strengthen the natural resource based livelihood options of the poor in a way reducing their dependence on sale of firewood as a source of income. As we work on contiguous areas of land, we feel an increasing need to engage with the larger panchayats and build the capacities of member habitations and villages such that they are better able to articulate and ensure that their plans for development and natural resource management in particular are adequately reflected in the planning processes and programmes of the panchayats.

Area Description

These uplands were once covered with dry deciduous forests but are at present largely degraded. The region is also the catchment for the Mansi and Wakal rivers, which go on to meet with the Sabarmati River in Gujarat eventually draining into the Arabian Sea. The area falls under the upper Aravalli Super Group and the typical formations are Tidi, Mochia-Magra, Zawar, Udaipur, Dewari and Sishmarga-Dantahiya. The typical soil in this area is chemically matured but texturally immature. The soil type varies from red loamy to sandy, gravelly to medium black soils. Agro-climatically the region comes under the Central (Malwa) Highlands and Kathiawar Peninsula.