Clusa-natural resource management

CURRENT MANAGEMENT

There is no management plan for the local forest and few controls over its use are possible because of transportation and personnel issues in the Forest Department. It is generally known that permits are required for non-home use of timber and other products, yet because of the trouble and expense there is some illicit tree felling within the boundary.

Illegally located villages and fields

Some villages have recently been established within the forest boundary, as have agricultural fields both adjacent and not adjacent to villages. Even in 1999, with the entry of CLUSA into the area for agricultural and forest management activities after permission granted through the Chief and the Forest Department, new fields have been cut into otherwise-continuous forest cover. It is not clear how this happened, but rumors came out conversationally in village interviews that some people thought the forest was going to be degazetted, and other people misunderstood the Chief’s admonition to clear no more fields in the forest. Even before these most recent incursions, there have been fields placed inside the boundary in the 1990s simply because no one was there to say it was not allowed. There seems to be more pressure for fertile land on the east side of the forest than the west. The north side, which is heavy into cotton growing, has a good number of tiny villages located within the boundary as well.

Use of fire

One of the principal management problems today is that of fire misuse. Many villages noted that in the past the Village Headman was informed by the chief of the period during which fires could be started to clear grass and to hunt: usually May/June in some parts of the forest and October/November in other parts (grazing areas) to allow fresh grass to grow. This system is no longer in place, and fires that are lit during the hottest driest months of August to October, lit mainly by hunters and children hunting mice, cause unnecessary damage to soil and seedlings. It is said also that fires drive more wildlife away now than before. Only fires close to villages or fields are controlled or snuffed with tree branches.