Training of Trainers for CFR Management Plan preparation, Yavatmal district, Maharashtra
Date: December 7th-8th, 2021
Figure : CFR Rights Training Workshop for trainers (GSMT), Yavatmal.
A training on Community Forest Resource Management Plan (CFRMP) preparation was organized for the staff of Gramin Samasya Mukti Trust (GSMT), Yavatmal on 7th 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. 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.
Dr. Sharad Lele gave a brief background of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. The main provisions and the rights recognized were discussed. The importance of the Community Forest Resource (CFR) management rights provisions (section 3(1)(i)) was emphasized.
ATREE and TISS have jointly developed a simple template for CFR management planning. This template has been accepted by the Government of Maharashtra. This template was introduced and explained by Dr.Atul Joshi. 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 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.
Field visit to Gond Buranda, Maregaon:
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.