Solan: ESZ products set to boost women’s income

Ambika Sharma

Solan, March 5

Eco-development has been utilised as an effective tool for providing alternative sources of livelihood and income-generation opportunities to the forest-dependent communities residing in eco-sensitive zones (ESZs) by the wildlife wing of the state Forest Department.

“The state of Himachal Pradesh has previously made little use of this robust conservation tool, given the challenges of terrain and accessibility and the unique socio-economic character of the state,” said N Ravisankar, Deputy Conservator of Forests (Shimla wildlife division).

“The Shimla Wildlife Division initiated a programme of eco-development in various protected areas of Shimla, Solan and Sirmaur through a sequence of steps. A list of forest-dependent villages, individuals and households having greater dependence on forests and were at a lower socio-economic class were identified. They were extensively consulted on the scope of livelihood generation, requirement of community assets, energy saving devices, training/skill development needs and involvement in community based eco-tourism,” he added.

“A key part of the eco-development is the entry point activity, which is the first point of interaction where trust and goodwill sprouts between the Forest Department and the villagers. Such activities were planned for the local community keeping in mind the scope of income generation and alternative livelihood generation,” he said.

According to the official, pine needle and food processing training sessions were held for women of villages in the ESZ of the Chail wildlife sanctuary. The training programme witnessed enthusiastic participation of over 100 women from the villages adjacent to the sanctuary. These women had never been trained and skilled by other departments and a majority of them hailed from socially and economically backward classes of society, lending greater footing to the training programme.

A similar initiative was launched in the Shimla Water Catchment Wildlife Sanctuary with a training programme in soap making and food processing having been organised for women of villages in Chamyana panchayat falling in ESZ area of the sanctuary.

“When we took the initiative of eco-development to the Churdhar Wildlife Sanctuary and its surrounding habitation, the programme was greeted with great enthusiasm and vigour from the women. The sanctuary is a treasure trove of biodiversity,” Ravisankar said.

“The sanctuary faces a great deal of biotic pressure as the villages surrounding are socio-economically backward and heavily dependent on natural resource for fodder, fuel wood, and grazing. The eco-development has proved to be a game changer as it provides an alternate source of livelihood for women, weaning away their dependence on livestock rearing. Thereby, it creates a social fence for this biodiversity treasure,” he added.

“In our initiative in the year 2023-24, we undertook skill development programmes for pine needle handicraft, dhoop agarbatti manufacture, knitting, stitching and food processing. We touched around 200 lives in the buffer area of the sanctuary in villages such as Nohradhar, Devna, Choras, Talangna, Chhogtali, hoping to kindle their interest and provide them with an alternate source of livelihood,” the official said, adding that he wished to replicate the success further.

Forward market linkages in the form of various HIMIRA shops set up by Rural Development department, cluster groups sale points, Eco-Shops run by the Forest Department have also been created by the forest staff for the products.