Project Detail

In_situ conservation of indigenous and Rare species of plants to support the livelihood of communities in the fringes of Koundinya Wildlife Sanctuary.

The project laid emphasis on the in-situ conservation of rare and indigenous plant species (NTFPs); identify and employ simple processing techniques to add values to NTFPs by involvement of local communities; in-situ conservation activities and establishing a marketing network for NTFPs to improve the socio-economic conditions of the local communities; prioritize the most common and abundant NTFPs in the selected project area and the capacity building of the communities including women through training and action programmes to conserve and enable sustainable harvesting of selected forest produce.

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Krishnamurthy Foundation India

Country:

India

Area Of Work:

Biodiversity

Operational Phase:

Phase 2

Grant Amount:

US$ 20,855.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 21,730.96

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 1,000.00

Project Number:

SGP/GEF/IND/OP2/02/KAR03

Start Date:

3/2002

End Date:

8/2003

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

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Project Characteristics and Results

Gender Focus

Both men and women actively took part in the project related activities. Women had been specially focused to provide the skills of value addition and nursery raising activities for the NTFP yielding plant species. The individual groups decided these, based on the interest. Since the project idea was conceived looking at the needs of the local communities, the participation was found to be at a higher level during the project planning, implementation and evaluation stages.

Notable Community Participation

The project involved the local communities from the stages of project initiation, planning, execution and implementation. The project ideas were drawn along with needs of local communities. The communities were part of the project during various stages of project activities and processes. This has helped the project activities to go smooth at the site. The communities owned the processes and approaches framed in the project activities were made simple enough to be followed and implemented at the project site.

Significant Participation of Indigenous Peoples

The project involved three important indigenous communities namely Poojarlu, Irula and Yerlu. Since these communities were residing in the project site for a long time, it did not affect the project design with respect to their ethnic, cultural and historical factors while implementing the project activities. The indigenous communities helped in identifying some of the selected NTFPs with their end uses at the site. The indigenous communities cooperated with the project activities throughout, and shared their experiences to improve the project activities.

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

The project specifically aimed at promoting the sustainable production and use of non timber forest products in the semi-arid tracts of Eastern ghats' forests of India. The project conserved and increased the total population of NTFP yielding rare plants in dry deciduous forests thereby improving the local biodiversity of the NTFP yielding plants in the forest. This had a likely impact of increase in forest biodiversity at global level.

Capacity - Building Component

Three selected groups of the community were trained in various processing techniques of the NTFPs. Two local youths now could spell the scientific names of the NTFP yielding plant species. They could even take small surveys to identify and list NTFP yielding plants. Local community especially women were trained in value addition techniques of NTFPs, and now they could independently handle value addition and processing of selected NTFPs. A suggestion was made to the implementing agency during the final evaluation visit and marketing activities for the NTFPs to sustain the project activities.

Project Results

1. Establishment of a germ plasm bank and nursery for locally preferred, indigenous, economically important and rare species of plants.
2. Participation and capacity building of local communities which directly interact with the forests in order to provide better livelihood opportunities to them.
3. Introduction and training of a small people?s group from the local community in a simple processing technology for value addition to one or more NTFP s already being harvested and traded by local communities.
4. Developed a book with local specific field activities for primary and middle school children in Telugu (the local language).

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