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Forestry
At AT India, Forestry and Conservation are an intrinsic part of
our activity. The goal is to create a raw material resource base
that will provide livelihood options to local communities,
building on locally available skills. The basic issues we are
addressing is encouraging the local community to participate in
conservation by adopting sustainable harvesting practices and
allowing the natural process of regeneration. AT India’s efforts
are directed at:
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Providing the
community the necessary training to make an assessment of their
existing biological resources and its rate of depletion and
regeneration.
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Encouraging
plantation activity.
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Training on
sustainable harvesting methodologies
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Federating common
property management institutions such as the Van Panchayats to
enable them to manage their assets. As an example, 90% of the
available forest land comes under what are known as `reserved
forests'. While the local community enjoys harvest rights, there
is reluctance to contribute to any conservation/plantation
related activity in these regions due to ownership issues. This
for example is a vital issue which will need to be discussed and
resolved between the people and the government.
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Creating seed
banks and encourage development of nurseries for village based
plantation activity.
To date, we have planted around
534 hectares of land and 768000 saplings with serrata oak saplings, fodder trees and
bamboo. Several local NGOs as well as the State Forest
Department are partners in our afforestation program.
The temperate oak tasar silk project |
The honey and beekeeping project |
Self Help Groups and microfinance
Conservation and plantation |
Dairy development – business development services |
Ringal and Lichens
Village based Ecotourism |
Interpretation Centers
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