Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) as livelihood Option for Rural Population: A Case Study from Aravali Hills of Rajasthan, India Rajasthan, India Partners          Start date April 2006 End date March 2008 Grant Rs. 0.45 millions   * Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Aravali afforestation project, Aravali Bhavan, Jhalana Industrial Area, Jaipur Rajasthan, India. * Arid Forest Research Institute, New Pali Road, Jodhpur-342005, Rajasthan, India Contacts * Project Leader: Dr. R.L.Srivastava, Director, Arid Forest Research Institute (AFRI), New Pali Road, Jodhpur-342005, India Project Investigators: Dr. Pradeep Chaudhry (pradeepifs@yahoo.com), Head Silviculture Division; Mr. Arvind. S. Apte, Dy. Conservator of Forests and Dr. Pramod Kumar, Scientist-B, AFRI, Jodhpur-342005, India Project Associates: Mr. Lakhpat Singh, Technical Assistant and Mr. Narayan.S.Rao, Field Assistant, AFRI, Jodhpur-342005, India Purpose Research to ascertain the non timber forest products (NTFPs) availability and potential as a livelihood asset in Aravali region of Rajasthan, India

	Lessons:
	Non Timber Forest Products as Livelihood Option for Rural Population: A Case Study from Aravali hills of Rajasthan, India. Pradeep Chaudhry. 2008 PDF (includes pictures of NTFPs)

Use of Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches

Various studies have shown that forest dwellers are highly dependent on Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) to sustain daily requirements of their family needs.

In India, more than 41 millions of tribal and forest dwellers derive their earnings from these products after consuming about 60% of collected NTFPs for their personal use. In the tropical dry deciduous forest areas of India, where there is scarcity of water and opportunities for farming are limited, NTFPs are, in many cases, the only means for survival for tribals. NTFPs are a part of the socio-cultural life of tribal people living in Aravali region of Rajasthan who maintain a symbiotic relationship with the forest and forest based products.

The study was carried out in Pratapgarh, Udaipur (Central) and Banswara Forest Divisions (covering an area of about 4000 sq. km, where Joint Forest Management (JFM) activities are already in place. JFM is a institutionalized mechanism, which is slowly emerging into a form of sustainable forestry using sustainable livelihoods approaches, where local communities and the owner (mostly government) of the forest, manage the natural resource and share the cost and benefits equally.

The Aravali hills of Rajasthan state are store house of a variety of NTFP yielding species. Tropical dry deciduous forests of Aravali hills are natural resources which can be rightly called livelihood assets for the local rural communities as they collect not only fuel wood and fodder grasses from these forests but lot of other NTFPs for their self consumption as well as for sale.

There was a need to make an assessment of availability/ potential of NTFPs in Aravali hills of the state and to quantify the value of these products so as to make a sound and ecological viable policy for the subsistence of forest dwellers and for overall conservation and development of the forest-resources of the region. There was also a need to assess as to how much annual financial value was being realised per household through collection of these NTFPs and for sustaining local communities livelihoods .Therefore, a research project was undertaken at the request of Rajasthan forest department.