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Achievements
Jiban Deep JFM, Melaghar Forest
Range
This was the first Joint Forest Management (JFM) project in
the North Eastern region and was started in 1989. The State
Forest Department, assisted by the Jagdish Bose Vrikshamitra
Society (JBVS), initiated the project. The forest management
committee is elected every year
and consists of thirteen
elected persons of whom three are women. It polices 100
hectares of forest land covering four panchayats. Most of
the forest under the JFM is reserved and protected forest.
Eighty per cent of the population has joteland (land owned
by individuals for cultivation) outside the forests, while
20 per cent have rights allotted in forest lands to practise
forest-related livelihood strategies.
Though the JFM brings four panchayats in its fold, the
biggest and the most active is Purba Chandgara, which has
230 families. The Gram Pradhan of Purba Chandgara, Tapan
Chakraborty, says that the JFM and panchayat committee work
with each other in two ways. First, the panchayat helps the
JFM Committee (JFMC) identify poor families who should
benefit from different programmes. Second, the panchayat
gets involved with the day- to-day life of forest-dependent
people through the JFMC. Indralal, the presi- dent of the
JFMC, stated that the Committee has worked to build unity
between tribals, non-tribals and Muslims in order to
strengthen communal harmony.
The Jiban Deep JFMC attempts to distribute the benefits of
JFM in an equitable way. Families under the JFMC are divided
into A, B and C grades.A-grade families, of which there are
twenty to twenty-five, do not need any additional employment
through the JFMC. B-grade families, of which there are
thirty, get some but not sufficient work in a year and are
allowed to col- lect some forest produce. Most families
belong to the C type, i.e. families that get very little
work in the year and whose livelihoods depend on forest-
related work. While C- and B-grade families are the primary
focus of the
JFMC, A-type families are also included in its activity so
as to prevent ille- gal felling and in order not to alienate
dominant groups of the village from
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