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| TDEF
Project The Restoration Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest
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| Continued
- Part 2 |
The project hopes to develop a strategy of shared
forest management, concentrating efforts of reintroduction
and proper management on government reserve lands,
paramboke lands (common land), temple lands and tank
bunds. Methodology will involve identifying the 50
most threatened forest species, continuing botanical
surveys of existing species, listing which species
are best for reintroduction, devising effective systems
of monitoring and implementing approaches to participatory
community management.
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Seeds collected from indigenous
forest
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Collecting seeds |
A question that needs addressing is "why have
other joint forestry management projects not been
successful?" Joss feels that many such projects
are too "donor motivated," and the role
of good leaders on the local level is of prime importance,
to convince local people of the intrinsic value of
properly managed resources. Incentives to motivate
committed participation take the form of micro projects
for income generation: timber and fodder lots, cultivation
and sale of medicinal plants, and possibly even eco-tourism.
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Near
to Marrakanam, adjacent to the village of Kurrupuram,
there is an area of 250 acres of government reserve
forest. Nearby there was an additional 200 acres
which the forest corporation cleared in 1973 for
"commercial forestry", planting eucalyptus,
acacia, and some cashew trees. Natural re growth
is significant in these plantations, and there
is a possibility that it could become a medicinal
plant development area. It is also envisioned
to create nearby an "interpretation and training
center", displaying aspects of the life sciences,
a traditional medicine dispensary, and demonstration
and ethno-medicinal gardens. |
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A demonstration garden |
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In the nearby reserve forest, students could explore
the rich diversity of the TDEF, for example, useful
and interesting understory plants, carnivorous insect
eating plants, wild ground orchids, and traditional
medicinal plants such as elumbhuti, used to help set
broken bones.
The project is also designed to support the planting
of 75,000 trees within Auroville, fortifying AV forest
gene banks in designated sanctuary areas to the north
and south of the City area, along with bunding and
checkdam work needed to combat soil erosion and enhance
groundwater percolation. Other aspects directly related
to our own development is the partial funding for
the new herbarium, under Walter's direction, at the
new Botanical Gardens site.
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European Commission |
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