This project will create a participatory resource use plan which will lay out the steps that need to be taken by the community, the Forest Department and the local NGO Samrakshan Trust to reduce pressure on the Reserve Forest. It will also help to demarcate and rationalize the resource use within the Reserve Forest by people from different villages that use this forest, and build consensus among them on their roles in forest protection and sustainable resource use. It will help the forest department to revive Forest Protection Committees and channel its resources in a focussed manner so that sustainable resource management goals are met more effectively and in a socially just manner. It will create a model that other villages can adopt in the Reserve Forests that they depend on, so that over time, the entire buffer area of the Kuno sanctuary comes under a regime of participatory and sustainable natural resource management.

All five target villages have legally constituted Forest Protection Committees, comprising village nominees and a forest guard as ex-officio secretary. They are entrusted with participatory protection of their forest resources, but at present they are dormant. The project will rejuvenate these committees and also involve Village Watershed Committees and women’s Self Help Groups through regular meetings. Through these community based organizations (CBOs), plans will be formulated for mitigating pressures on the forest and for its sustainable management. Some initial activities included in the Village Plans will be undertaken on a pilot basis using the project fund. Detailed estimates will be prepared for a comprehensive sustainability plan, which will later be funded by the forest department and other donors.

Community based natural resource management measures will help to meet the biomass needs of the local community sustainably. If this is not done urgently, the community will gradually move closer to the Kuno sanctuary to meet its biomass needs, and will come into growing conflict with the Forest Department.