Creating livelihoods with pine needles

(MainsGS2:Development processes and the development industry —the role of NGOs, SHGs, various groups and associations, donors, charities, institutional and other stakeholders.)

Context:

• The project, called ‘Improvement of Himachal Pradesh Forest Ecosystems Management and Livelihoods’, is running to increase income as well as conserve biodiversity.
• Under this programme, women self-help groups (SHG) are provided with working capital and a revolving fund, with skill training and market linkages provided to the members.

Strengthen capabilities:

• The project was started by the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which works to strengthen capabilities in emerging countries. 
• Over the past three years, women from seven of Himachal Pradesh’s 12 districts have been handcrafting a variety of home products while contributing to improving the State’s fragile forest ecosystem. 
• They turn the highly flammable leaves of the chir pine, which often exacerbate forest fires, into baskets, pen stands, serving trays, mirror edging, jewellery boxes, and more.

Women empowerment:

• The women, who have always been silent and unseen when they worked at home or in the field, now feel more empowered with the social connections they have formed and the additional boost to the family income. 
•  Now they come together as a community and there is strength in numbers as after getting trained by the experts at JICA they have been producing various different articles from pine needles.
• The products created by the women SHGs are sold at fairs and exhibitions and moreover, the Forest and Tourism Departments stay in touch with these groups and place orders and pool the products for collective sale by the group. 

Preventing forest fire:

• The leaves of the semi-evergreen chir pine ( Pinus roxburghii), one of the five species of pine found in Himachal Pradesh, are highly combustible due to the presence of resin in them. 
• The State has about 1,23,885 hectares of area covered with chir pine forests and according to a government estimate, about 1.2 tonnes of chir pine needles are shed per hectare annually.
• Forest fires are a major factor in the degradation of forests in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. 
• Thus, in the past, the Forest Department adopted a number of methods to prevent forest fires, including deployment of fire watchers, creation and maintenance of fire lines, involvement of local communities to douse fires, and the use of remote sensing, but incidents of forest fires have not decreased significantly.

Conclusion:

• Universities and institutes tried to utilize pine needles as fuel in cement factories, and as pine needle boards, biofuel, and pine needle charcoal, but these failed to sustain after the pilot projects.
• But SHGs bring a drastic change to not only get rid of pine needles but ensure women empowerment by providing them better economic and living opportunities.