Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
ACTORS
FARMERS & ADIVASIS / OTHER TRADITIONAL FOREST DWELLERS
The most important and vulnerable stakeholder in the tree plantation
on farmlands on riverside are farmers. A farmer’s decision to agree to plant
trees in his farmland by replacing his present cash crop either makes or
breaks the case for river revitalization. While all the tasks on the farmland
in transitioning to and operationalising the new cropping pattern will be
his, he will need active government help to make the transition successfully.
While various schemes to support the farmer’s transition may be offered by
the government, finally it will be the farmer who decides whether to enroll
himself in these schemes. The farmers will need to organize themselves
through the FPOs.
Tribals and other traditional forest-dwelling communities have lived
off the forest for millennia. The Forest Rights Act, 2006 has been one of
the strongest legal tools that has provided them community rights to
manage the forest resource they depend on. The community forest resource
management rights provided by this law is central to the implementation
of afforestation in forest lands under this program. The tribals and the
communities that depend on the forest should be encouraged to plant
trees in their community forest area and to adopt a tree based agroforestry
model for their lands where individual forest rights are recognized. Their
subsistence needs are usually supplemented with wild fruits and other wild
products from the forest. Formalization of their already existing association
with forest to benefit them economically will ensure they do advance levels
of tree farming on their lands where individual forest rights are recognized
as well as on lands where CFR management rights are recognized, for
products used in agri-business inputs along with fruits. The species chosen
will have to be conforming to the local forest ecology. Income from nontimber
produce can be substantial and formation of FPOs will help the tribal
communities in this direction.
INDUSTRIES
With growing realization of scarcity of water resources and their
pollution, industries consortia have been spearheading efforts to make
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