1.1 Project Summary
Across Bhutan, fallow land is becoming an increasingly critical issue for the agriculture sector. At present, Bhutan has 64,000 acres of fallow land. the reason behind land remaining as Fellow is mainly due to labor shortage and crop depredation by wildlife. Slash and burn is a common practice that has been followed out in this areas. This practice requires less labor and it is believed to have stored nutrients in fellow lands. To harness the nutrients which are readily available people practice slash and burn. It is also cost effective.

Therefore, about 60 fallow land owners (17 women and 43 men) from Mekuri - Bangyul chiwogs of Dungmaed gewog under Pemagatshel dzongkhag have come together to combat the practice by converting approximately 60 acres of slash and burned areas. The proposed site has an altitude ranging from 800masl to 950masl southeast facing slope. It has a warm sub-tropical climate with mean annual rainfall of about 1000 mm. The project site used to be a very productive agricultural farmland. People currently grow sub tropical fruit trees such as Mango, Avocado, Litchi etc. Furthermore, the area is dominated by Schima spices and other inferior shrubs and grasses species, thereby decreasing the agro-ecosystem services.

The community have decided to convert about 60 acres of land to Agro- forestry sites which would firstly contribute to achieving national food security. Secondly, it would enhance the rural livelihoods through income generation and thirdly, it would have multiple environmental benefits including preventing, reducing and reversing land degradation, reducing carbon emission, increasing biodiversity and enhancing agro-ecosystem services.


This project has direct relevance to the GEF-SGP Country Program Strategy, specifically the following results indicators which contribute to sustainable agriculture and food security under OP-7:
? Objective : to improve community-led biodiversity friendly practices and approaches
? Objective: to improve livelihood through diversification of food production and value chain management practices

1.3 Project Objectives and Expected Results
The overall objective of the project is to improve community -led biodiversity friendly practices and approaches and to improve livelihood through diversification of food production..

Specifically, the projects aim to achieve the following 2 key results:

? Result 1: Enhanced community based biodiversity friendly practices that contributes to ecological and social resilience.
? Result 2: improved community livelihood through sustainable food production and value chain practices.