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Mapping the Efforts of Communities in the Conservation and Protection of Commons
A case study in Sadhukonda RF in Chitoor district, AP, India
R. Ravindranath, T. Balachander and Suresh Jones
Foundation for Ecological Security (FES)
Anand – 388 001
Purpose
The results of efforts made towards the improvement of the natural resources through the participation of village communities were regularly captured by field visits, process documentation, photo documentation, survival counts and ground studies. During the year, these outcomes were also enriched and corroborated by applying Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. The study was aimed to assess the potential availability and extraction patterns of biomass in a forest range, thereby assisting in developing strategies for further course of action. As a part of the exercise efforts were initiated to begin a process of collection of information on the biodiversity of the area. The broad objectives of the study are to (a) ascertain the improvement in vegetation (b) observe where these changes are happening (c) observe whether the village institutions contributed to the improvement (d) assess whether the extraction of phytomass is within the permissible limits and (e) begin stock-taking of bio-diversity of the given area
Methodology
Satellite imageries of different years and of the same season were procured from NRSA Hyderabad, and interpreted to produce classified maps of vegetation. The classified maps are validated by ground truthing surveys. Out of the various sampling methods, justified random sampling method of modified Whittaker’s method was adopted to enumerate the species considering the forest type, topography, species composition and types of micro habitats. Simultaneous field study was conducted to estimate biomass and diversity. The quantity of biomass was estimated using interpolation techniques using GIS. In order to study the extraction patterns of phytomass seven villages based on parameters such as proximity to the forest, economic condition, size of the habitation were selected and information on the extraction of fuelwood, NTFP and fodder through household survey was conducted.
Study area
The Sadhukonda Reserve Forest in District Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh constitutes the designated area for the change detection study. The Reserve Forest area is sufficiently large and compact and the period of intervention has been around six years. Of the 25 villages protecting the forest 8 villages were supported by the Forest Department since 1996. FES worked with the remaining 17 villages since 1998. The area of the Reserve Forest is 6380 hectares. Besides campaigns to refrain from injudiciously harvesting of trees and putting fire to the forests, no other physical activities were undertaken by FES in the forest area during this period.
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