The project will be conducted in Balakhu Village Development Committee (VDC) of Okhaldhunga District which is at a distance of around 48 Kms from the district headquarters. The duration of the project will be one year. The project aims to effectively mobilize the local communities in conservation endeavours. For this purpose, they will go through skill development training programmes, education and awareness programmes on nature conservation, sustainable development and management. The formation of new user groups & restructuring of the old ones for achieving peoples' participation is expected to build capacity of the local communities. In order to help sustain these institutions by meeting technical knowledge requirements and other support needs, coordination mechanisms will be developed with local institutions including the District forest Office, Federation of Community Forest Users' and Village Development Committee office.

To boost economic activities, provision of a revolving fund will be made available within the user groups. Local communities will thus be able to establish small enterprises on their own. Besides this, various educational and awareness programmes will be conducted at the community level to educate them on the importance of conservation, sustainable development and management of local forest based resources. The local communities will also be motivated to use alternative sources of fuel like bio briquettes, solar energy for meeting their energy needs. Increased awareness on the need for conservation, the provision of alternative sources of income and employment, and more importantly local peoples' participation in decisions that affect their lives will help achieve social mobilization.

As a result of improved economic and social status of the local communities and increased awareness levels, their dependence on forest resources can be reduced by a substantial level. The integrated development of these local communities will thus make a substantial and long lasting contribution to nature conservation efforts in the proposed project area. To achieve the goal of the project, the activities have been broadly divided into four groups i.e. Community Development, Livelihood, Sustainable Resource Management, and Monitoring & Information Dissemination.