– Hon. MP. Sharad Pawar will guide the Gathering
Sewagram (Wardha) / Nagpur: A state-level conference of the representatives of the Gram Sabha having collective forest rights and NGO’s, will be organized on Sunday, 12th February 2023 from 10 am to 4 pm at Gandhi Ashram, Sevagram, Wardha. In this conference, discussions will be held on collective forest rights and livelihood, work being done on forest and water conservation, problems regarding the ongoing work and their solutions. The objective behind this is to create an efficient platform to work together at the state level. A day earlier, on February 11, a meeting of representatives of Federation of Gram Sabha’s having collective forest rights and NGO’s in Vidarbha has also been organized at the Gandhi Ashram during morning 10 a.m. to evening 5 p.m.
Senior leader Hon. M, P. Shri. Sharad Pawar will be the main speaker and guide in the program. Senior & experienced Volunteers & dignitaries working on the issue of Collective forest rights and livelihood Mr. Dilip Gode, Smt. Pratibha Shinde, Adv. Poornima Upadhyay, Dr. Kishore Moghe etc. will also be prominently present in the assembly. Gram Sabha representatives of Vidarbha, Khandesh, Konkan department and representatives of organizations like Khoj, VNCS, GSMT, LoksamanvayaPratishthan, Sakav, Gram Arogya, Reward, Van Niketan, Issue, Sandesh working with them will participate in the conference. 700-800 representatives of Gram Sabhas who have got collective forest rights from the districts of Gadchiroli, Gondia, Chandrapur, Nagpur, Yavatmal, Amravati, Nandurbar, Dhule are likely to take part in this conference.
Under the Forest Rights Act 2006 and Rules 2008 in the state of Maharashtra, a total of 7000 villages have been given ownership rights over 30 lakh acres of forest land and water resources. About 13-14 lakh families and 60-70 lakh citizens have got ownership rights on forests. Most of these citizens are tribals and poor forest dwellers. Their livelihood is dependent on agriculture and forest produce (Tendupatta, Bamboo, MohPhool, Amla, Hirda / Behda and others). By the overall and collective management of water, forest and land, the residents of these villages will get economic benefits on a large scale and they will also get employment. Vidarbha AajeevikaManch and all friendly organizations are working in more than 1000 villages of Vidarbha, KhandeshAajeevikaManch in more than 100 villages and Konkan AajeevikaManch in more than 200 villages.
Forest and water conservation, livelihood, forest produce and agriculture, development work done by the gram sabhas in collective forest rights conference, follow up of government schemes, collective forest rights and livelihood, good communication with gram sabha federation and government, problems faced in this work and its consequences. Solutions will be taken after discussion on these topics.
During the discussion session in the conference, the representatives of the villages doing good work on this issue will present their views on the topics of forest rights, forest and water conservation. Along with this, there will be PowerPoint presentations on video and projector, an Exhibition. Along with that, senior and experienced volunteers and workers will guide the audience.
