FOREST REGENERATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF NTFP

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 3
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Forest Regeneration and Development of NTFP
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:

Natural Regeneration in Forests and Plantation – As per the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court dated 07.05.2002, the worked out forests of A & N Islands are to be brought into its natural profile. Accordingly, after removal of timber, the forest areas are required to be regenerated by undertaking several silvicultural operations in the remaining natural forest crop in the said area as per prescriptions of the approved working plans. The operations also include planting of indigenous species in large gaps and casualty replacement in the subsequent years.

Under the scheme, thinning operations will be carried out in old Teak plantation and gap will be planted with natural species as per the prescriptions of the approved Working Plans. In addition, the scheme also provides plantation activity in degraded forest areas to enrich their growing stock as well as planting of forest encroachments pockets on being vacated by forest encroachers.

NTFP – Supply of Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) to the Islanders and SSI Units is one of the mandates of the Department of Environment & Forests. The Department is supplying the NTFP (Ballies, Posts, Cane, Bamboo, Thatching Leaves, Fire wood, etc.) to the Villagers / islanders / SSI Units since long from the natural forests and old NRA. There are about 110 Nos. of cane and Bamboo based small scale/cottage/tiny units in the Islands. These Non-timber forest produce provides livelihood to a large number of people engaged in these units. The demand of raw material is continuously increasing with its diversified uses, as these are also required for fencing, hut making and various other domestic uses by the settlers. To meet the local demand, plantation of Cane, bamboo and poles will be undertaken in forest area under this scheme.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman

FOREST SURVEY, CONSOLIDATION AND WORKING PLAN

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 4
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Forest Survey, Consolidation and Working Plan
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
Working Plan – To manage the forest resources judiciously on scientific principles, consolidation of forest area, survey of forest resources and preparation of Working Plan are pre-requisite. The Working Plans prepared for each territorial division for a period of 10 years are to be revised periodically. Hon’ble Supreme Court in its order dated 07.05.2002 in W.P. (P) No. 202 of 1995 directed to revise all existing Working Plans confining forestry management practices in already worked out forest areas.

Working Plan revision involves demarcation, survey, forest boundary, preparation of forest inventory, collection of data and analysis of growth and yield of forest produce, etc. As per direction of Hon’ble Supreme Court, Working Plans of South Andaman, Middle Andaman, Mayabunder, Diglipur, Baratang and Little Andaman Forest Division have been revised. Recently proposal for preparation of working scheme for Nicobar division has been approved by the Govt. of India.

The Administration has also approached the Hon’ble Supreme Court for inclusion of un-worked area under appropriate working circle for meeting the local demand of timber and NTFP. Once this is finalized, the old prescriptions of Working Plans will have to be revised. Consolidation – Consolidation of forest boundary is very essential to manage forest resources scientifically. Various components of consolidation are survey, demarcation and consolidation of forest boundaries and settlement of rights.

This also includes demarcation of boundary between revenue and forest lands, digitization of entire forest boundary and its reconciliation of revenue records. It is proposed to complete the Consolidation activities during this XIIth FYP period.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman

FOREST EXTENSION & PUBLICITY

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 5
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Forests Extension and Publicity
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
The main objectives of the scheme are to promote extension of tree cover beyond the conventional forest area and to educate the masses about the need for conservation and protection of forests and wild life. In order to reduce the pressure on natural forests, the scheme envisages programmes to extend forest cover by promoting raising of plantation of fuel wood, fodder and fruit bearing trees by farmers on their own land as well as community land etc.

To involve the Panchayati Raj Institution on extension forestry, the Department provides Grant-in-Aid for implementing the area specific social forestry projects. The scheme also includes implementation of various Afforestation schemes and protection activities with the involvement of Joint Forests Management Committee (JFMC), thereby making local people as one of the major stakeholder of our conservation efforts.

Awareness generation programmes through celebration of important events like Van Mahotsava, World Environment Day, International Biodiversity Day, World Forestry Day, etc. organizing nature camps, seminars, workshops, etc. are also important components of this scheme.

Under the scheme, it is also proposed to undertake other extension activities at various important locations visited by the tourists. These activities mainly include development of model beach, development and maintenance of nature’s trail, providing publicity materials for the visitors. It is also proposed to involve the local people for the management of such activities through JFM.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman

DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT & FOREST

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 6
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Forests Utilization
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
Supply of timber to the Islanders, SSI Units and other Govt. Departments for local consumption is one of the mandates of the Department. After the implementation of Hon’ble Supreme Court’s order dated 07-05-2002, the timber harvesting has been restricted to worked-out forest area and timber is being harvested as per the revised working plans approved by the Central Empowered Committee constituted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

As per the revised working plans, yield of timber per hectare have been reduced considerably. This has increased per unit cost of extraction of timber as compared to extraction cost prior to revision of working plans. The scheme also makes provision for expenditure towards harvesting and transportation of timber from outlying divisions to feed the two Govt. Saw Mills at Chatham and Betapur.

During the 12th FYP, the following thrust areas are identified:
1. Augmentation of existing machineries, operational vehicles, extraction tools.
2. Creation of database on extraction activities like location of the coupe, coupe area, tree marking details, number of trees removed and merging these data on GIS database at range and divisional level as part of Forest Management Information System.
This will be one of the inputs for future working plan revisions.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman

FOREST BUILDING & ROADS

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 7
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Forests Building & Roads
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
Most of the forestry activities spreads over the interior areas of the Island which makes it mandatory for the forest officials and workers to work in the interior forest areas.

To facilitate working by the staff and the workers, it has become obligatory on the part of the department to provide appropriate residential and non-residential accommodation to the field staff and workers. Besides this, construction of fair weather forest roads for transportation of harvested timber as well as patrolling are required to be undertaken and maintained.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman

IMPROVEMENT OF GOVERNMENT SAW MILL

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 9
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Improvement of Govt. Saw Mill
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
With the closure of private wood based industries (Private Saw Mills and Plywood factories) as per the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court dated 07.05.2002. Only Govt. Saw Mills at Chatham and Betapur are required to function for meeting the demand of sawn timber to the local people in these islands.

Both these mills have been functioning since 1925 and 1995 respectively. The machineries originally in these mills being old have outlived its utility resulting frequent breakdown and disruption of functioning of the mills, affecting the supply of much needed sawn timber to public and other govt. departments.

In order to enhance the level of production and to minimize the down time on account of frequent breakdown, it has been decided to replace the old machinery with new ones under the above mentioned scheme included in the 12th Five Year Plan period. The scheme also envisages for improvement of buildings, including dwelling / recreation facilities to the workers of Govt. Saw Mills.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman

PROTECTION OF FOREST & COASTAL ECO-SYSTEM

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 10
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Protection of Forests and Coastal Eco system
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
A & N Islands are known for its rich biodiversity, endemism, Tropical rain forests, mangrove, corals and marine wealth in its pristine state. 80% of the total geographical area is covered with forest cover as per the report of the ISFR 2009. The protection issue has been highlighted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, Prof. Shekar Singh Commission Prof. C R Babu Committee and IDA and all these recommendations propose to improve the protection measures by the Department of Environment and Forests. Hence, the protection scheme needs to be revised keeping in view of the new challenges.

Security of Nation’s boundaries and border areas is critical not only from strategic angle but also from the point of ‘ecological security’. This is applicable more in case of our coastal territory adjoining the maritime borders and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which are open frontiers. In contrary to our land borders, they are easily approachable by foreigners and difficult to monitor because of their vastness.

The problem of protecting our maritime areas and wealth gets further complicated and compounded in isolated Andaman & Nicobar islands which have a coast line of more than 1962 km exposed from all the sides; about 6,00,00 sq. km. of EEZ and sparse settlements only in 37 islands out of more than 500 islands.

In the IDA meeting held on 15th June 2011 under the Chairman ship of Hon’ble President of India, it was desired that the MoEF would formulate a scheme exclusively for protection keeping in view of the vulnerability of islands forests and Coastal ecosystem. A scheme has been forwarded to the GoI by the Administration vide letter no. CWLW/C/62/436 dated 05-08-2011 for ` 53.21 Crore. The scheme envisages redeployment of existing strength without any new creation of post during this FY Plan.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman
CONSERVATION & DEVELOPMENT OF MANGROVES & LITTORAL FORESTS

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 11
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Conservation and Development of Mangroves & Littoral Forests
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
Mangroves and Littoral forests play a very significant role in conserving the coastal ecosystem and checking coastal erosion. They also provide breeding homes to marine life. These Islands have extensive open coastline and inland creeks which are fringed with littoral forests and mangrove forests respectively. Conservation of Mangrove and coral reef ecosystem are the integral part of any strategies to combat the emerging threat from sea due to climate change. The scheme provides specific studies to be undertaken on the aspects. Protection and development of these ecosystems are very important from ecological point of view.

The scheme envisages raising of mangroves and coastal belt plantation in suitable areas. It also provides for procurement of boats for patrolling and for execution of the works. As per assessment of ISFR, 2013, the total Mangrove Forests is 604 Sq.Km area, out of which 70 Sq Km area is opened/degraded in nature.

Integrated mangrove restorations programme in suitable areas of islands shall start through people’s participatory approach. Soil and sea water parameters in coastal areas shall be monitored to study their influence on mangrove ecosystem.

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman
ECO TOURISM

Sub-Sector: Forestry and Wildlife Scheme No.: 12
1. Name of Department : Department of Environment and Forests
2. Name of Scheme : Eco Tourism
3. Whether Continuing or New Scheme : Continuing Scheme
4. Objectives:
The tourism policy of Andaman & Nicobar Islands aims to promote sustainable nature bound tourism by developing eco-friendly tourist infrastructure. The Andaman & Nicobar Administration is focusing on the issues like – augmentation of infrastructure facilities and providing the required support facilities for promotion of nature based tourism, along with ensuring adequate safety and security to the tourists.

There is a strong scope to promote eco-tourism because of the fact that there is limited scope for industrial activities in the islands and declining timber harvesting/ wood based industries pursuant to Supreme Court’s judgment dated 07/05/2002.

This has led to tourism being identified as a key sector for economic development, revenue and employment generation in the islands. Keeping in view the fragile ecology and limited carrying capacity of the islands, the objective of the Administration is to strive for sustainable nature based eco-tourism. The Supreme Court’s in its judgment dated 07/05/2002 has accepted the recommendation of Prof. Shekhar Singh for development of eco-tourism based on forest resources and areas in these islands and such infrastructure should remain under the control of Forest Department.

At the same time the development is required to generate local employment and economic development on a sustainable basis. Accordingly, the Jungle Lodges & Resorts (JLR), Bangalore an entity under the Department of Tourism, Govt. of Karnataka was engaged as a consultant for preparation of a Detailed Project Report (DPR) in this regard. The JLR has submitted final DPR which has been accepted by the Administration.

The scheme will be operated as per the guidelines prescribed in the DPR. The DPR proposes following three circuits for

U-144 Circuit 1- South Andaman: Mount Harriet – Shoal Bay- Madhuban (Base at Mount Harriet with 15 double bedded cottages, Reception-cum-lounge by reconstructing the old commissioner’s Bunglow- A dormitory for 10 and other facilities. Satellite camps at Shoal Bay & Madhuban- 5 tented accommodation with basic facilities.)

Circuit 2- Middle Andaman: Long Island- Guitar Island- North Passage- Button Island National Park (20 Double bedded cottages, Reception-cum-lounge-cum-museum and quarters for support staff by remodeling the existing Main store building and Staff quarters of the Forest Department, Dormitory for 10 persons and other facilities. Use of solar power, Sea water for flushing, Rain water Harvesting, Generator linked desalination plant, Waste water treatment. Satellite camps at Lalaji Bay, Mark Bay and Cuthbert Bay– 5 tents with basic facilities)

Circuit 3- North Andaman: Smith Island- Aerial Bay- Saddle Peak (Base camp at Smith Islands – 15 Nicobarese style huts, Staff quarter – water harvesting structure, Equipments for re-cycling of water, recycling of bio-geodegradable wastes, solar power harnessing structure, Use of salt water for flushing , Rain water harvesting, Generator linked desalination plant. Satellite camp at Lamiya Bay – 5 tented accommodation with basic facilities.)

REFERENCES:

  Document from Divisional Forest Office, Middle Andaman