Our work under Land and Forest is divided into two broad areas: Adivasi and Rural Livelihoods
Under Adivasi, we support organisations working on facilitating individual and community forest rights, ensuring pastoral rights, and increasing access to healthcare, basic services, schemes, and entitlements for Adivasi communities.
To this end, we support more than 50 organisations working with the most vulnerable Adivasi communities across the country.
The work of our partners has led to positive changes on ground. There has been an increase in Community Forest Rights and Individual Forest Rights claims submitted and titles received. They have also helped in the preparation and ongoing implementation of Community Forest Resource Conservation and Management Plans.
Image credit - Purusottam Thakur
Our partners’ extensive work has strengthened local governance systems through the implementation of Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act. Now there are frequent Gram Sabha meetings with increased participation from the community.
They have also enabled the Adivasi communities’ access to entitlements such ration cards, pensions, caste certificates and scholarships, and aided the increase of household income through the sale of non-timber forest produce, farming and MNREGA.
The improvement of health and nutritional status of Adivasi families is another major area of our partners’ work. Better access to healthcare facilities have led to the following changes: reduction in children with severe acute and moderate acute malnutrition, reduction in incidents of death of child and mother during childbirth, and reduction in anemia among pregnant women.
In Rural Livelihoods, the other major area of our work under Land and Forest, we support more than 50 organisations working with the most vulnerable small and marginal farmers, vendors, artisans and weavers across the country.
Our focus is to support civil society organisations that address issues such as low income and low productivity of agricultural and allied activities, lack of access to market, credit, government schemes and services, degradation of natural resources and lack of productive assets of the landless families that aggravate livelihood challenges.
Through their work, our partners have been able to effect several positive changes on ground.
Chief among those are increased adoption of improved practices in agriculture and allied activities, reduction in the cost of cultivation along with improved market access and increased productivity of farmlands, strengthening of rural institutions and farmer collectives and increased and diversified income through cash crops and livestock interventions. Overall, these have led to enhanced well-being of vulnerable rural households.
In the area of Land and Forest, we work through our partners.
