TREE PLANTING ON PRIVATE LANDS
Dr. Narayan G. Hegde
BAIF Development Research Foundation
Pune 411 058
Need for Afforestation
With increasing population and growing consumerism, there has been severe pressure on food production and employment generation, particularly in agro-based development countries like India. This has had a direct impact on deforestation, increase in soil erosion and run off of rain water, resulting in depletion of natural resources and environmental pollution. Simultaneously, increasing use of fossil fuel for industrial production, power generation and automobiles has accelerated the emission of green house gases (GHGs) which are responsible for global warming and climate change. The negative impacts of global warming are far more serious in India due to prolonged droughts, rising sea level and melting of snow caps of the Himalayas thereby affecting steady supply of water to major rivers of North India and our food security. To reverse this trend, it is necessary to reduce the emission of GHGs, while taking up massive afforestation to serve as carbon dioxide sink and for supporting rural livelihood.
Trees have a significant role in keeping the environment clean, while supporting the livelihood. Over 43% of the cooking energy in the world is met from biomass. In rural areas, where 65% of the population lives, biomass is the only accessible and affordable source of energy. In the developing countries, the average per capita consumption of biomass in rural areas is equivalent to a ton of wood per annum and 50% of the wood cut in the world is used for fuel (Hall and de Groot, 1985). More than 2 billion people in the Third World are dependent on biomass to meet their energy needs which is equivalent to 22 million barrels of oil every day. In 1979, about 68.5% of the total rural energy was met from wood in India. In 2000, the annual demand for wood in the Indian rural sector was 192.6 million tons while it was difficult to meet even 50% of it from the available sources. This indicates the extent of damage caused to the natural forests. Most of the rural people have been dependent on Government-owned forests and community woodlots, which are under severe
Commissioned Paper. 2010. Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP). Constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, New Delhi. www.westernghatsindia.org
pressure and vanishing rapidly. Thus, deforestation has been severely affecting the ecosystem and economy in India as well.
Presently, only about 12% of the geographical area in the country is under close forests as against the stipulated forest cover of 33% required for maintaining an ecological balance (Anonymous 1989). To solve the energy crisis, the strategy is to promote production, and ensure judicious use of wood energy which will indirectly conserve our forests. This calls for improving the existing forests through people’s participation and increasing the area under forest cover even on non-forest lands, by bringing available barren and wastelands under afforestation. It is estimated that India has about 80-100 million ha of denuded forests and wastelands, which are neither put to any productive use nor considered for conservation. As such, these denuded lands have been accelerating soil erosion, wastage of rainwater and loss of bio-diversity, contributing to global warming.
Social Forestry – A Drive for People’s Participation
With the background of developing private and non-forest public wastelands under afforestation while protecting the natural forests, the Government of India introduced several people-oriented afforestation schemes in the early 1950s. However, the activity gained significance only during the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85) under social forestry, as a powerful tool to generate sustainable livelihood for rural people. To support this programme, afforestation was introduced under various development schemes such as Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Scheme (RLEGS), National Rural Employment Programme (NREP), Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), Drought Prone Programme (DPAP), Western Ghats Development Scheme, etc. In the 1980s, all the State Governments had set up a separate wing either in the Forest Department or in the Department of Social Forestry to operate social forestry schemes. Various schemes such as development of community woodlots on public lands, establishment of decentralised kisan nurseries for free distribution of seedlings and promotion of tree plantations on marginal agricultural lands were launched with huge financial support. The objective was to increase the supply of fuelwood, bamboo, small timbers and fodder, while generating rural employment and maintaining environmental stability. The strategy was to grow fuelwood closer to the consumption points. Among various afforestation activities under social forestry,
raising block plantations in the form of village woodlots on community lands, degraded forests and wastelands was the major programme. Such plantations aimed at reducing the hardship of women and children, who travel long distances in search of fuelwood. The remaining 30% of the programme included raising of seedlings for free distribution to farmers and schools. The focus was on fodder and fuelwood production.
Based on the recommendations of the National Commission on Agriculture (1976), the Sixth Five Year Plan focussed on the production of fodder, fuel, small timber, minor forests produce and industrial raw materials under the social forestry programme. The theme was “Development without destruction”. The overall target of the Sixth Plan was to bring 1.65 million ha under tree cover. In addition to afforestation on community wastelands, 37.25 million seedlings were distributed free for establishing farm forestry. Simultaneously, production forestry was also given a boost to bring 0.62 million ha under industrial wood plantations. Except for farm forestry, the other programmes could not make a significant impact because the objective of meeting the basic needs of fodder, fuel and timber of the local participants could not be fulfilled.
Looking at the drawbacks of the Sixth Plan, the Seventh Plan (1985-89) introduced a new programme with the theme “Forest for Survival” for expanding rural fuelwood plantations with the involvement of NGOs. In 1985, the National Wastelands Development Board (NWDB) was established to increase tree and other green cover on wastelands with a target of 5 million ha coverage every year, while promoting fuel and fodder plantation to meet local needs. NWDB intended to coordinate soil and water conservation, dryland farming, fodder development and conservation of land resources to prevent desertification as well. To popularise afforestation, various innovative schemes were also launched and significant among them were decentralised plant nurseries for distributing among small farmers, cultivation of fodder, fuelwood and round timber species through Forest Development Corporations, fuelwood plantation on urban wastelands, production of industrial raw materials on Government-owned wastelands and leasing revenue wastelands to poor for growing trees, etc. In 1988-89, after observing the performance for 4 years, the programme was restructured to cover activities such as reclamation of wastelands through agro-forestry, silvipasture and farm forestry, involving small farmers.
Under NWDB, 7.18 million ha wastelands were brought under afforestation during the first 4 years of the Seventh Plan with a survival rate ranging from 43.6 to 70.4% (GoI, 1989). Many NGOs, public sector undertakings and cooperatives such as NDDB and IFFCO initiated various innovative schemes to promote afforestation on degraded lands. All these programmes heavily depended on People’s Participation for their success. Apart from planting and maintenance, cooperation from local people was also expected for protection of plantations from stray animals and illicit felling, until harvesting for ensuring equal distribution among the participant families. However, the outcome was not very encouraging. Only 9% villages were covered under the programme. Community wastelands were not easily available in many villages because either the Panchayats were not prepared to spare the lands or there were many encroachments. The outputs from fodder and fuel were very low as compared to the local needs. Hence, the benefits were not significant (NCAER, 1988). Poor rate of survival of saplings, poor growth, poor protection from livestock and trespassers were other factors which contributed to the failure. In many States, the focus was shifted from fodder and fuelwood species to species such as eucalyptus because of local demand, fast growth and protection from stray animals. With regard to employment generation, fodder and fuelwood plantations generated only 60-80 mandays/ha while farm forestry generated 600-800 days/ha. The wage rate under these schemes being low compared to the local wage rate, there was no enthusiasm among the poor to take active part in the fuelwood production programme (Saxena, 1988; 1989; Sathe, 1990).
To enhance people’s participation in tree planting programme, the schemes were modified to integrate livestock with forage production and shift from fuelwood production to income generation by introducing short rotation species with long rotation trees and timber species with fuelwood. Emphasis was laid on extension programmes to motivate local families to take active part in afforestation (Shingi, 1988, Deshpande et al, 1990, Singh, 1990). During 1980-88, the State Forest Departments across the country claimed that 20 billion seedlings were distributed for planting. This meant an average of 35,000 plants per village but there were hardly any villages with such significant number of trees in the country. This reflected the poor performance of social forestry schemes in the country. This failure could have been avoided if suitable tree species had been selected. Most of the farmers would have taken good care if species of their choice had been provided (Hegde, 1987). Lack of marketing arrangements was another weakness of the social forestry programme.
Interestingly, farm forestry scheme which was promoted by Forest Development Corporations and private paper and pulp mills by distributing seedlings of eucalyptus and other commercial species, had exceeded the target as the participants were motivated by the prospects of economic gains. Fast growth, high value for the produce, sustained demand from industries and existence of an easily accessible market were the reasons for the popularity of eucalyptus plantation (NCAER, 1988). Higher profitability due to higher rate of survival, short gestation period, higher yield, ready market, high value products like round wood, remunerative price, negligible impact on seasonal crops, easy management of labour, ease in protection and favourable Tax and Land Ceiling Acts were the other reasons for acceptance of eucalyptus by farmers (Gupta, 1990). Farm forestry introduced on agricultural lands as a substitute for low yielding food crops with species such as eucalyptus was also successful (Muranjan, 1988). Farmers also preferred farm forestry as it demanded only 120-140 mandays of labour ha/year while bajra, gram and other rainfed crops demanded about 120-130 mandays/ha crop in 3-4 months (Singh, 1985).
Choice of Tree Species for Private Lands
Based on various social forestry projects implemented over the last 2-3 decades, it is clear that choice of species is the key to the success of any afforestation programme. When it comes to tree plantation on private lands, profitability is the main factor followed by other minor factors such as gestation period, demand for produce, level of investment, access to market, availability of planting material and specific local uses, which influence the farmers to select tree species for planting on their lands.
Selection of suitable species is the most important motivating factor for people’s participation as it influences the profitability. Tree planting on private lands is being carried out by the land owners either because they are convinced or motivated by some of the agencies engaged in promoting afforestation. There are very few farmers who take initiative in establishing plantations of new species, based on the information they have gathered about the utility and profitability of these species. However, most of the small farmers are driven by the publicity and attractive benefits as highlighted by the promoters, while selecting tree species for planting on their lands. The popularity of the species also varied from region to region, based on the demand for produce, marketing infrastructure, agro-climatic conditions, available inputs and the extent of awareness and publicity created by the programme implementing agencies.
Tree Species for Income Generation: In a study conducted in Pune and Nashik districts of Maharashtra, where multiple agencies were independently promoting tree planting, a majority of the farmers preferred growing fruit trees on their marginal and wastelands. This was followed by timber and round wood species. Among 35 most popular tree species promoted in the state, 18 species were grown for food, 8 for timber, 3 for fuelwood, 2 each for oil and ornamental purpose and 1 each for fodder and fibre. The most preferred among them were eucalyptus (Eucalyptus hybrid), mango (Mangifera indica), teak (Tectona grandis), custard apple (Annona squamosa) and jujubee (Zizyphus mauritiana). The list of these species with their popularity rank is presented in Table 1 (Hegde, 1991). This preference is based on the profitability as well as market demand for the produce and field publicity. However, eucalyptus was the most popular species because of reasons other than high returns. First of all, eucalyptus had good demand as round wood in the local market. Any wood that was not sold as pole was purchased by paper and pulp mills at the site. In addition to assured demand, easy marketability and an attractive price, eucalyptus is a fast growing, non-browsing, coppicing species with a short harvesting cycle and well adapted to adverse agro-climatic conditions. Being one of the few species promoted by the wood-based industries, it has received wide publicity. Other tree species cultivated in India on a commercial scale under farm forestry by farmers are casuarina in coastal areas and poplar (Populus deltoides) which is confined to Northern India, beyond latitude 28o N.
In interior areas, where marketing facilities for wood were inadequate, farmers preferred to grow fruit crops and used existing market outlets for selling their produce. Thus, about 50% of tree selected were fruit species. Among fruit trees, seedlings of custard apple, jujubee (ber), tamarind, jambolina, drumstick, jackfruit, cashew, Indian gooseberry, wood apple and bullock's heart (Annona raticulata) were raised by farmers in decentralised rural nurseries while other species such as mango, guava, pomegranate, coconut, mandarin, orange and sapota were raised in commercial nurseries promoted by the Horticulture Department. Most of the farmers did not mention any other species although there were many with high income potential because there was neither any publicity nor availability of the planting materials locally.