Social Forestry in India

Indiscriminate abuse of the forests concerning since the mid 20th century led to deforestation and it was the rural poor of the country who was affected most by burden on forests. Degradation of forest resources aggravated the problem of poverty, unemployment and scarcity of food, fodder, fuel, timber etc. among this section of the society. There was felt a need, therefore, to undertake tree plantation programs involving these rural poor, primarily to meet their own needs from the trees.

What is social forestry?

The traditional forestry is mainly involved in the protection of trees and their production, where as social forestry is concerned to welfare of the society, particularly the rural poor who depend for most of their livelihood requirements on forests. Social forestry does not only helps in rehabilitation of degraded land but also provides opportunities of employment to rural poor.

Social forestry

Birth of social forestry

Forest wood provides roughly 43% of the energy consumption by the developing world. In India, biomass constitutes about 85% of the rural energy and roughly 50% of it comes from the forests. Besides a source of wood, forests also help in agricultural production, clean environment and biodiversity conservation. Since ancient times forests have been a substantial support to rural economy of India. Over 60% of the Indian population is directly dependent on forest for fuel, fodder, fibre, timber, medicine, food etc. Moreover, forests also provide job to roughly 20 million people around the year throughout collection of non wood forest products, and for over 50 to 60 million people, forests are a part of their culture and a natural way of life.
In India, out of the total land area of 329 million hectares, 143 million hectare is under agriculture, and 77 million hectares classified as forest. the forest area of the country is hardly 2% of the world's forests, where as it is home of 15% of the world population. The traditional communities had been living comfortably in perfect harmony with the forests using them judicially to meet their needs following proper management practices. However, with increasing growth of human and livestock populations and a shift in the ownership of natural forest from the the princely states to the Federal government, the control and moral pressure on the local population was relaxed, leading to discriminate abuse of forest since the middle of 20th century. Unable to meet their basic needs from agriculture, many unemployed and poor families turn to for is not only for fodder and fuel, but also to generate cash income through sale of wood and other forest products. Vested interest also took this opportunity to exploit forest for commercial purpose.

Apart from biotic pressure, the following factors also contributed to the denudation of forest resources (GOI, 1984).
* Increase in human and livestock     populations;
* Inadequate scientific and technical inputs;
* Inadequate skills and training of the staff to play their expected new roles;
* Poor investment on forest development; 
* Poor management of forests
* Damage caused by mining, irrigation projects, industries, roads and jhum cultivation.

The abuse of forests continued unchecked till mid 1970s, when the ill effects of deforestation were prominent in the form of fodder and wood fuel scarcity, soil erosion, flash floods, water scarcity, loss of precious flora and fauna and climate change. By 1981, the area under wastelands in India was estimated at 93.70 million hectares, excluding the degraded agricultural lands measuring over 85 million hectares. Most of the natural forests around the villagers had turned into wasteland reducing the area under forest to only 40 million hectares. Over 30 million hectares of community pastures were devoid of vegetation due to overgrazing by 450 million heads of livestock. Due to non availability of wood on village common land, rural women were compelled to spend 15-35 hours was every week in walking learn distances for collecting fuel wood from interior forests. As a result of deforestation,the damage from floods affected 58 million hectare of agricultural land and over 60 million people during the 1980s. The extent of damage had increased by folds over the earlier two decades.

The rural poor, particularly the women, who are primarily responsible for fetching water, fodder and fuel were faced with severe drudgery. The community felt that while it was the responsibility of the forest department to manage the forest, it was their inherent right to collect fodder, fuel and other products from the forest, without any obligation. Planting of trees for fodder and fuel was never considered by the farmers as a necessity. Meanwhile, faced with a shortage of biomass, many village communities resisted the extraction of wood from the forest for commercial purposes. This led to the involvement of rural communities in forestry development programs in India.

In 1976, the National Commission on Agriculture in India introduced the concept of social forestry to encourage those who were dependent on fuel wood, fodder and other products, to meet their own needs through various activities, in order to reduce the burden on forests. This concept was further defined by FAO in 1978, by defining community forestry as the program which intimately involved local people in a afforestation, irrespective of the pattern of land ownership. While the traditional forestry cover the protection and production roles, social forestry was intended to play the social role.