Home ›› 20 Jul 2022 ›› Nation
Social forestation has benefited around 798 people, including 204 women, most of them are marginalised in the region, including its vast Barind tract, by providing their dividends as their legitimate share for looking after trees.
The participatory social afforestation programme has improved the living and livelihood conditions of the beneficiary poor and landless farmers by increasing their income to some extent as they get a profit share after being sold trees following 10 years of plantation.
Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Rafiquzzaman Shah said the participatory afforestation activities have been expedited with the main thrust of encouraging the rural people in planting saplings and nursing of the transplanted trees.
He said the department has been implementing various lucrative programmes in all 31 upazilas of Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Natore and Naogaon districts. People of the respective areas were given responsibilities to look after the planted saplings and they get 55 per cent share of the sale after 10 years of plantation while 20 per cent and five per cent are distributed among land owners and local government institutions concerned.
The beneficiary people get around Tk 3.02 crore, while the land owners Tk 40.21 lakh and Union Parishad Tk 24.63 lakh in the last two years. Successful implementations of the social forestry programme always supplement the government’s poverty reduction effort while facing the adverse impact of climate change in the drought-prone area.
Profitable afforestation activities encouraged many people to plant saplings of wood, medicinal and fruit-bearing trees at homesteads, roadsides, office premises, embankments, forest areas, religious institutions’ premises and other places.
DFO Rafiquzzaman Shah said they are implementing a five-year project in 32 upazilas of Rajshahi, Naogaon, Chapainawabganj and Natore districts since November 2020 last with the main thrust of conserving and improving biodiversity in the region at present.
