A week-long training programme cum workshop was inaugurated by the State’s additional principal chief conservator of forests DVS Khati on Monday at the Central Academy for State Forest Service (CASFoS) for in-service SFS officers from all over the country on community forestry and joint forest management (CF&JFM).
Course coordinator Meera Iyer said that the course aims to understand and appreciate the indispensability of people’s participation in any forest management initiative, familiarise themselves with the latest developments in the field of community forestry and Joint Forest Management, to develop competence in techniques which enable sustained community participation in forest management, understand integration of livelihood and cultural interests of local population in Joint Forest Management, strategies and to achieve better forest management through public participation. This one-week programme will highlight on various subjects like facilitation skills, community mobilisation, gender sensitisation issues in forestry, micro-credit and income-generation activities and stakeholder analysis. The CASFoS principal Ashish Rawat, senior academy officials N Sonzalian, Nidhi Srivastava and Japan International Cooperation Agency experts Yasuhisa Tanaka and Atsuko Godo were also present on the occasion.