Valmiki Villagers Acquire Eco-Development Skills

A new hope of ray seems to arrive for Valmiki Tiger Reserve, located in Bihar state of India. Thanks to the conservation projects of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) in collaboration with US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Bihar Forest Department. Due to the extensive researches conducted by WTI, it has been revealed that Valmiki Tiger reserve also has a significant presence of Tigers. Since this Tiger Reserve shares its border with Chitwan National Park and Parsa Wildlife Reserve in Nepal, so its become more important for the WTI to revive its conservation project in this reserve.

The major concern of the WTI related to this Tiger reserve is to develop eco-development activities with the villagers of the 22 villages that lies within the “Done” valley, which is a precarious incursion of human settlements into the core area of Tiger reserve. Since the reserve is bearing the pressure of 18,000 residents, its become necessary for the WTI to develop some eco-development activities to reduce dependence on forest resources.

WTI has started its eco-development project with the help of eight villages namely Naurangia, Gardi, Piparahawa Tola, Khairahni, Matiarawa Tola, Simrahani Tola, Kamarchinwa and Majuraha. These villagers are chosen on the basis of their proximity to the core area of the reserve and their level of dependency on forest products.

WTI has organized a livelihood training programme at Society for Rural Industrialization and Social Transformation Initiatives (SRISTI) foundation, Patna, to provide some vital information related to livelihood to the residents of these eight afore mentioned villages.

Field Officer Rajarshi Ranjan, WTI has informed that 20 villagers of the eight different villages that falls under the WTI project area were taken to Patna for an integrated agricultural training that includes compost making, fishery, poultry, piggery and farming of medicinal plants, mushrooms etc. The villagers were also given knowledge about marketing aspects of business, arrangements of finance through bank and micro-finance institutions by experts associated with SRISTI.

Moreover, Ranjan said that WTI has decided to help those people who wants to start their own businesses. 25% of the net profit will be contributed to the community development fund. Earlier, WTI has already trained a person about the manufacturing of the husk-stoves, which is very useful in reducing the consumption of the fuel wood. People residing here not only extract fire wood from the fringes but also from the deep forest, which have an adverse effect on the jungle.

WTI and USFWS has also decided to promote fast growing fuel wood plantations in community and private lands as a sustainable alternative to reduce the extraction of fuel wood from the forest. In addition to this, WTI has also decided to train the local people in bio-gas and improved stove technology.