Agartala: Indo-German Development Cooperation (IGDC) project of Tripura has begun to assess land based climate finance possibilities in tribal dominated Dhalai district of Tripura besides, identifying existing land use systems the villages.
In the aegis of 17th CSE media study on Fragile Ecosystem in Tripura revealed that under carbon finance they will make bio-mass estimation followed by development of suitable project scenarios based on management plans.
“Estimation of biophysical potential for different land use patterns in the project is the fundamental of the concept but methodology drafted to qualify and quantify adaptation benefits of mitigation in the state,” study said.
Assessment carbon finance option is expected to provide a sustainable source of additional funds to implement village development plan, which are being planned and executed by the villagers as per their choice.
Apart from that the project has targeted to make beneficiaries of Recognition of Forest Rights Act (RFR), 2006 naturally responsible for protection of the forest besides, bringing about newer livelihood and income-generating opportunities to the forest dependent communities.
The IGDC Project has the mandate to work for the enhancement of livelihood conditions of the people vested with land rights under the RFR Act and it is one of the uniqueness of the project.
A total 3,43,100 ha of land spread over Dhalai & North Tripura Districts under the project and interestingly about 65% area comes under forest coverage and 94 % beneficiaries are tribal and IGDC aims at socio-economically empowering this populace, taking advantage of the provisions of the RFR Act.
It said the targeted beneficiaries of the project, by and large, had been dependent upon their traditional way of cultivation – Jhum, which not only found a detrimental practice for deforestation, also hardly able to provide them with any sort of sustainable livelihood/income-generating opportunities.
To shift the focus of such communities from the traditional way of Jhumming, multiple land-based activities are being promoted by the IGDC Project. Once the land rights are transferred, the beneficiaries are given plantation materials for their individual lands.
However, referring to the success of Tripura Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and IGDC over past few years, the study applauded while IGDC is concentrating on sustainable livelihood option and management of natural resource, JICA has already prepared the map of natural resources including bamboo.
It pointed out that under JICA; forest department is trying to re-activate about a thousand of Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMC) in forestry related activities for livelihood because after implementation of RFR Act and getting individual land-deed, a few cases JFMC members inclined to emphasis on own-allotted land. (UNI)