All-women forest rights information centre opens in Nayagarh district in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: A forest rights information centre was opened at Kaptapally village under Nuagaon block of Nayagarh district on Tuesday. The centre will serve as an important resource hub for the long struggle of forest dwelling community to gain recognition of rights over their customary forests under the Forest Rights Act.

The centre will be run by a group of women who spearheaded innovative community forest management practices in the area by conserving and protecting a large area of very dense forest.
The community forest management group has a long history of democratic forest protection and management. Several villages in the area wrestled back control from the Forest Department to set up Community Forest Management following grave degradation of forests in the 1980s. They harnessed their traditional knowledge on forest and plant species to enhance the forest cover, bring streams back to life and rebuild the natural habitat of elephants.

With a stick in hand, the women used to stand guard over the forests at night against timber thieves. For them, recognition of their forest rights would be not only their reward for conserving the forest, but also an insurance plan for the forest against degradation.

Though they had claimed their rights in 2015 but are yet to gain formal recognition. Similarly, there are 24 villages in Ranpur block where same protection process is going on for the last 40 years and they still striving to get recognition.

Lok Sabha MP Pratyusha Rajeswari Singh and Collector Arindam Dakua were present among others at the inauguration ceremony. The Collector assured that the Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights will be recognised soon and all recognised Individual Forest Rights (IFR) titles will be demarcated.