87% bamboo potential in eastern part of Maharashtra left untapped: Study

NAGPUR: The transition of ownership and management rights of forests under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and Panchayats (extension to the scheduled areas) Act, 1996 (PESA) is not working well in Gadchiroli and Chandrapur districts. As much as 71% of the bamboo area have been under community forest rights (CFR) and PESA in these districts.
An interim study done for the first time here by Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal, revealed that due to demand-supply constraints, an estimated 87% of the bamboo potential in eastern Maharashtra is being left unharvested.
“A few PESA institutions that have attempted to market their bamboo through traders have been duped. The looming Naxalite threat is also one of the big safeguards against rampant bamboo harvesting,” the study revealed.
Over the last decade, of the total bamboo area of 4,749 sqkm in Maharashtra, 3,354sqkm (71%) has been brought under CFR and PESA. Of this, 3,153 sqkm (94%) alone is in Gadchiroli and Chandrapur. As there was concerns in the forest department whether communities are engaged in over-exploiting bamboo, it entrusted IIFM in December 2018 to conduct a study on bamboo management by 4 institutions — forest department, Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra (FDCM), CFR and PESA villages.
IIFM collected data between March-June 2019 and sampled bamboo forest harvested in 2016-18. The team selected 16 sites — 4 each under CFR, PESA, forest department and FDCM in Gadchiroli (10) and Chandrapur (6).
The study has found that of the probable 417 bamboo-bearing CFR villages, ideally one-third (139) should be harvesting bamboo every year, but the forest department record indicates that only 18 (13%) are harvesting bamboo. Here too, only one-third of the compartment area is being harvested.
“Within this area harvested, we detected over-harvesting in only 18% of clumps. This is comparable to 16.5% over-harvesting in forest department and FDCM sites. Hence, there is no significant over-harvesting threat in CFR/PESA areas,” says the IIFM.
The biggest constraint in the marketing management of bamboo on the demand side was competition from north-eastern, central and eastern states, substitution by other material like plastic, metals, brick masonry, and lack of an assured marketing channel for local communities. On the supply side, it was lack of capacity building and empowerment of communities.
On the governance side, the study found bamboo resource augmentation largely missing in the agenda for all the four institutions managing bamboo. The PESA and CFR institutions have potential to usher community-based forest management but have not received adequate support they need for all-round growth.
“We discussed the IIFM report at a workshop recently in which CFR experts suggested how more participation of communities can be achieved with the help forest department and FDCM. We need to train them and facilitate market mechanism. The modalities will be decided once a final report comes in,” said Praveen Srivastava, PCCF (production & management).
“We need to pitch in as both, FRA and PESA, were brought in for economic empowerment of the communities besides maintaining ecological security. We will help them prepare micro plans of CFR areas,” Srivastava added.