|
|
| |
 |
| |
| |
| Archives |
| |
| The world
bank and India |
| |
Among the most controversial
forestry projects financed by the World Bank are the so-called
"social forestry" projects in India. In recent
years, the World Bank has financed seven social forestry
projects in India amounting to a total of $345 million
in IDA credits.
Social forestry was originally conceived by the Indian
government as a response to the forestry crisis and to
accelerating deforestation in India. Recent estimates
are as high as 1.5 million hectares per year. The original
objectives of social forestry projects including those
financed by the World Bank were to assist rural communities
and landless people to meet their needs for fodder, fuel
wood, small timber, fruits, and minor forest produce through
community-planned and managed tree plantations and nurseries.
Neither Social Nor Forestry
However, most social forestry projects have come under
increasing criticism because they have failed to adequately
involve the local communities and rural poor, who are
supposedly the main beneficiaries. Instead, these projects
have catered to urban and commercial interests through
the widespread promotion of fast growing tree species
for pulp and paper manufacture, rayon production, urban
fuel wood supply and other commercial uses. Private farmlands,
wastelands and community lands have been converted for
these uses, and in a number of cases the access of poorer
rural populations to fodder, fuel wood and other forest
products has actually been reduced. The widespread planting
of eucalyptus in ecologically inappropriate arid areas
has boomeranged with degradation of soils and water tables.
In 1984, the World Bank approved the India National Social
Forestry project for $165 million for the four Indian
States of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar
Pradesh. It was co-financed by the US Agency for International
Development (AID) and had four objectives:
1. To increase production of fuel wood, small timber,
poles and fodder.
2. To increase rural employment, farmer's incomes and
opportunities for participation by landless people.
3. To reforest degraded areas, wastelands, and reduce
soil erosion.
4. To strengthen forestry institutions.
A 1988-midterm review conducted by US AID discovered objectives,
non-fulfillment of several shortcomings environmental
and social counts. The USAID review found emphasis on
the promotion of fast-growing tree species such as eucalyptus
on privately owned large farms and wastelands to provide
wood products to paper and pulp industries and commercial
institutions.
It documented inability that eucalyptus was inappropriate
in meeting the project's objectives because of its lack
of fodder value and ineffectiveness in soil building.
Besides their inappropriate uses as a mono crop in semi-arid
areas where competition for water and the need for soil
enhancing treatments are high. The review also noted that
the project was not meeting the subsistence needs of the
local people, and therefore was ineffective in reducing
pressure on existing forestlands.
It cited the lack of participation of local communities
in project design and implementation, and over reliance
on industry-biased State forestry departments as the main
causes of the project's shortcomings.
In Karnataka, an IDA forestry credit of $27 million starting
in 1983 primarily promoted eucalyptus on private farmlands,
village common lands and wastelands. These plantations
had very little involvement of the rural community access
to landless. In some cases, rural community access to
fuel wood and fodder actually decreased because of poor
and landless were not permitted on common lands after
the state forestry department grew eucalyptus plantations
on these lands. In many instances, the eucalyptus plantations
produced perverse social impact. They were planted in
ecologically inappropriate areas, causing depletion of
water tables and exhausting soil fertility in arid areas.
In Karnataka, small farmers and rural poor were driven
to protesting industry biased eucalyptus plantations,
including civil disobedience involving the uprooting of
eucalyptus seedlings on village common lands.
Bank's Project in Bastar
In Bastar region of Madhya Pradesh, the WB's first project
for 'forest development' became a major cause for deforestation
in the region. The Madhya Pradesh Forestry Technical Assistance
Project. It was primarily developing for plantations for
the pulp and paper industry.
The World Bank project in Bastar was part of the trend
to convert natural forests to commercial plantations so
that the biomass produced could no longer benefit the
original dwellers. The tribal sustenance base in cane
and bamboo for basket weaving, mangoes, tamarind, jackfruit,
mahua and edible berries are all destroyed when monoculture
plantations of eucalyptus or tropical pine replace natural
forests. The Bastar Tropical Pine Project was planned
at a cost of Rs 96 lakhs to convert 8,000 ha of natural
forests in Bastar hills to pine plantations to feed the
paper and pulp industry. It was finally shelved due to
the serious resistance of local tribals. It was based
not on scientific knowledge but on ecological ignorance
of the forest ecosystem and tribals integration. It was
a prescription for destruction of tropical forests aimed
at changing the forest character in such a manner that
they exclusively serve commercial interests, not the indigenous
peoples.
In Karnataka, small farmers and rural poor were driven
to protesting industry biased eucalyptus plan-tations,
including civil disobedience involving the uprooting of
eucalyptus seedlings on village common lands.
The commerce-lisation of forests is the primary cause
of large-scale and rapid deforestation. The forest dwellers
are the victims, not the agents of deforestation—in
Bastar in Central India, in Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
in the North East and in the Himalayas.
It is not just the Bank's forestry projects, which have
destroyed tropical forests, but also its sponsoring Narmada-Sardar
Sarovar Dam project, besides mining and energy generation
projects at Singrauli in Central India. |
|
|
|
|
|
SHARE
4 NATURE
|
|
|
| - Wild Fact |
| - Green Tip |
| - Quiz |
| - Atricle |
| - Campaign |
| - Wild Photos |
| - Your Experience |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
