Degraded lands and forests cover as much as 130 to 170 million hectares (about 50 percent of total area) in India. Such an enormous resource is unproductive due to lack of initiatives and funds for regeneration. Recently, land restoration programmes to revegetate wastelands have been initiated by the government as well as non-governmental organisations (NGO). The major objective of these programmes is to evolve institutions that could meet their energy and fodder requirements in a sustainable manner. One such programme is by an NGO called National Tree Growers Cooperative Federation (NTGCF). The NTGCF forms tree grower's cooperative societies (TGCS) with the active participation of the local people and finance them during the intial period (generally five years). Mixed species are planted in the TGCS site to obtain fuelwood, fodder, pulp and timber and the benefits are shared among the shareholders. A methodology of programme appraisal comprising the criteria of economic feasibility, sustainability and acceptability is developed and applied to the TGCS. Economic feasibility is measured in terms of the internal rate of return (IRR) on investment, sustainability by the long-run viability of the programme and the acceptability in terms of the stakeholder participation in the programme. Data were obtained from TGCS amongst three states in India, viz., Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa and were analysed to see how they have fared in the economic as well as social benefits. The results indicated that the IRR for a 60-year plantation cycle for various TGCS vary between 10 and 12 percent. The amount of carbon sequestered range from 90 to 110 tonnes per hectare over a 60-year period.
展开▼
