Empowerment of tribal and other traditional forest dwellers to get their community forest rights recognised for sustainable forest-based livelihoods and conservation

PHIA with Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) entered into a partnership to facilitate realization of forest rights that includes Individual Forest Rights (IFR)s and Community Forest Rights (CFR) as per the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and Panchayat Extension in Scheduled Areas (PESA) or any other appropriate programmes/schemes of the Government. The project commenced on 1st December 2019 and was implemented with the support of two civil society organizations; Arouse Society and Shramjivi Mahila Samiti in Gumla and Simdega respectively. The focus of the partnership and the intervention is to:

1. Facilitate secure tenure over common  lands  and water bodies through effective implementation of CFR/ restoration of revenue wastelands/grazing lands.
2. Strengthen capacities of village communities in preparation and implementation of conservation, restoration and management plans for sustainable management of common land and water bodies.
3. Enable convergence with government programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) for restoration of degraded lands and water bodies and improved livelihoods of rural poor.

So far the mapping of the coverage area has been successfully completed and preparatory work for the next phase has begun.