A week-long training-cum- workshop for the State Forest Service officers from across the country on community forestry and joint forest management began at the Central Academy for State Forest Service (CASFoS) here on Monday.
The academy principal N Sonzalian inaugurated the workshop while speaking about the importance of community forestry and joint forest management for the benefit of both the environment and humans.
The course aims to enable officers to understand and appreciate the indispensability of people’s participation in any forest management initiative, familiarise them with the latest developments in the field of community forestry and joint forest management, to develop competence in techniques that enable sustained community participation in forest management and to understand integration of livelihood and cultural interests of local population in joint forest management. The programme will focus on facilitation skills, community mobilisation, gender issues in forestry, micro-credit and income-generation activities. A total of 10 officers from Chhattishgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand are attending the course. Course coordinator Meera Iyer, faculty member Dr Surabhi Rai and others were also present on the occasion.