‘Training of Trainers’ for CFR Management Plan preparation – Report of workshop held in Yavatmal district, Maharashtra

On day 1, December 7th, a training on Community Forest Resource Management Plan (CFRMP) preparation was organized for the staff of Gramin Samasya Mukti Trust (GSMT), Yavatmal on 7 and 8th December at Jhalka, Yavatmal. The training was focused on staff members specifically working with villages that have received Community Forest Resource rights (CFRR). The programme was structured for 2 days. The following is a brief report of the programme.

The opening session began with a round of introductions of the participants. There were a total of 17 participants working at the level of cluster and project coordinators in 4 main tehsils in Yavatmal i.e. Maregaon, Zari, Ghatanji and Ralegaon. One of the participants (Prashant) was from the Adivasi community, who had worked as GSMT staff in the past and is now working independently.

The introduction to FRA and CRA session was led by Dr. Sharad Lele where he gave a brief background of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, especially focussing on the act’s aim to ‘undo historical injustice’. He elaborated on the various types of historical injustices that traditional forest dwellers had to face since the British times. The main provisions and the rights recognized were also discussed. The importance of the Community Forest Resource (CFR) management rights provisions (section 3(1)(i)) was emphasized.

Mr. Shrikant Lodam from GSMT gave an overview of the CFRR claiming process in Yavatmal and its present status. After facilitating claims for 5 villages in Yavatmal, GSMT gave training on CFR claiming process to government officials. The administration then undertook the task of recognizing CFR areas in a campaign mode and till now 730 villages have their CFRRs recognized.

In the CFR management planning session the aims/goals of CFR planning were discussed. The major goals that were emerged were:

1. Forest must remain: conservation, protection
2. Forests must be useful: have to also think ‘for whom’
3. Livelihood enhancement
4. Equity and justice
5. Democratic self-governance

Also, preparing a socio‐ecological resource map can be an important tool for CFR planning. For instance, identifying who are the Mahua collectors, tendu collectors, landless, women, artisans, etc. will help in inclusive planning.

Introduction to the ATREE-TISS template was done. ATREE and TISS have jointly developed a simple template for CFR management planning. This template has been accepted by the Government of Maharashtra and notified via its GR no. वहका‐2017/प्र.क्र.77/का‐14 dt. 6th July 2017. This template was introduced and explained by Dr.Atul Joshi. He described the structure and components of the management plan. He also discussed a simple vegetation assessment method which consisted of laying 10 X 10 m plots along transects and noting down both quantitative and qualitative information. A separate training for this method was also conducted for 2 days prior to this workshop in village Parsodi.

Dr. Shruti Mokashi introduced different types of maps that are relevant to CFR management such as village cadastral maps from Bhunaksha, Forest compartment boundary map, revenue boundary maps and CFR boundary map. The use of ATREE’s webgis portal (http://cfr.atree.org) as an easy way of understanding village revenue boundaries and getting basic demographic and area information for any village was also demonstrated.

Mohan Jadhav from GSMT then presented the current CFR management plan formats that they have been using for data collection. The pros and cons of the more exhaustive data collection approach followed by GSMT were discussed.

In the final session of the day the participants were divided into three teams based on the tehsil that they have been working in. They were assigned a potential village (Rajurwadi, Kodpakhindi and Gond Buranda), where CFR management planning exercise will be conducted in near future. They were provided with an A3 size printout of the village area (from Bing Aerial) overlaid with village revenue boundaries and the village cadastral map. Based on basic village information they were asked to assess the needs and challenges of managing the CFR area in the villages and suggest solutions.

On day 2, December 8th, a field visit was organized to Gond Buranda, a potential village for CFRMP preparation on which one of the breakout groups had worked on day 1. The village with around 1600 population had received 218 ha as their CFR area. However their CFR area was completely degraded, with only a few Palas and Babool trees. Their CFR area was mostly used for grazing. The women had to walk long distances, sometimes in CFR areas of neighboring villages to collect fuelwood. The trainees learnt the use of mobile‐based GPS apps for tracking, and through the interactions with the villagers and particularly key persons who accompanied the team into the field, they familiarised themselves with the challenges of CFR regeneration in a village with a heterogeneous population and complex history of settlement and land grants in erstwhile forest area. The importance of getting the correct records of recent land grants and IFRs was recognized in this context.

The session following the field visit focused on the question of livelihood enhancement through CFR management. The CFR rights of the FRA give communities the right to access, collect and sell Non‐timber forest products (NTFPs) from their CFR areas. Thus, NTFPs have the potential to contribute to socio‐economic development and livelihood enhancement of the communities and hence their inclusion in CFR management planning is essential. Tendu leaves and mahua flowers are important NTFPs in this region. GSMT has been working on development of NTFPs and their marketing. In this session the challenges they faced and their experience during collection and sale of Tendu leaves and Mahua flowers over the last few years were discussed. Presently, GSMT is assisting SHGs in the villages to buy Mahua flowers collected by the villagers. These are then sold at higher prices after a couple of months by the SHGs. Possible strategies that were discussed were that the gram sabha can provide the capital to buy the mahua and pay daily wages to the villagers assisting in drying and storing the mahua flowers till their sale, thus distributing the profits more equitably than in the SHG‐basd model.

Mr. Chandrakant Shetkar from GSMT, concluded the training program with a brief summary of the learnings over the 2 days and emphasized the need to deliberate over and engage with the concepts discussed and incorporate them into GSMT’s work.

A few participants expressed a strong interest in learning GIS techniques. A special short introduction to QGIS software and some tools essential for mapping was held for them after the workshop was formally closed.