THE GOVERNMENT / FOREST DEPARTMENT

Large amounts of funds are allocated by the central government to the forest department for replanting, and many large plantations are carried out every year. Unfortunately though, the Forest Department's existing approach does not effectively involve local communities to ensure that the trees that they plant are properly cared for.

The Forest Department keeps records of the number of seedlings they have planted, which means that, on paper, their record is impressive, but unfortunately in reality only a small percentage of these seedlings survive.

If there hasn't been much rain, the seedlings stand very little chance of survival without being regularly watered for several weeks after being planted. The barbed-wire fencing erected by the forest department frequently gets broken, which means that cows can wander freely into the plantation areas and eat the seedlings. Without anybody to care for the plantation area, the fencing is rarely fixed and all the trees get eaten, or they wilt and die from lack of water.

Under current government regulations, all trees planted on government land (i.e. anywhere in the forest) belong to the forest department, as do all their products and any income that they generate. Local people are allocated a certain quantity of forest products each year through the forest department's TD (Timber Distribtion) rights system, however, perhaps due to the lack of community-regulated decision-making, the system is often abused and results in illicit timber smuggling to distant markets by local people in need of income.

Most of the trees planted by the forest department are conifers, mainly grown to meet national timber needs and to increase economic growth through export. The many other indigenous tree species, which are used for so many purposes by villagers, are very rarely planted, and even when they are, under current regulations, the villagers are not entitled to use them. It is therefore not surprising that villagers do not look after forest department plantations or plant many trees themselves. There is very little incentive to do so.