ROURKELA: In the local forest, villagers of Jhurimal Sundargarh see hope for a better life, not just for themselves but also for their children. And to save it, the forest protectors are willing to walk the extra mile.
The group - Jhurimal Van Suraksha Samiti - has not only been protecting the forest lands of the village under Lefripada block but also taking measures to rejuvenate the denuded patches and reduce pressure on the forest ecosystem. And they have been successful to a large extent. Recently, they set up a medicinal garden on three acres of land in the village.
The Jhurimal VSS comprising 168 village households has been existing for the past 28 years but it started showing results after the Forest department began implementation of Phase-2 of Odisha Forestry Sector Development Project (OFSDP) in 2018.
Jhurimal resident and Ujjalpur Forest Management Unit (FMU) team leader Digambar Upadhyay said on July 16, the VSS members offered ‘shram daan’ to set up the ‘Sanjivani Vatika’ on three acres of vacant land and planted saplings of 56 varieties of medicinal plants, herbs, shrubs and creepers.
Two years back, they had developed an orchard with 168 varieties of fruit-bearing trees over 1.6 acres of vacant land.But that’s not all. Considering the importance of a ‘sacred grove’, the VSS members also planted 420 plant species including banyan and peepal saplings. Besides, palm saplings were planted on the banks of water bodies and boundaries of the assigned forest area. He added that of the ‘assigned forest’ of 52.700 hectares (ha), about 20 ha was highly degraded and the VSS did an excellent job with ‘artificial natural regeneration’ plantation to restore the lost green cover.
“The list of works that the VSS members have been doing is a long one. They have also dug up a five-km long cattle proof trench to prevent livestock from grazing in the plantation areas and also recovered a large land parcel from encroachment and planted 3,100 saplings with outstanding survival rate,” Digambar said.
Incidentally, it was also the VSS which successfully pressed for providing cooking gas facility to 133 village households that led to significant result in curbing villagers’ dependence on forest firewood and felling of trees.
Sundargarh Divisional Forest Officer Pradeep Mirase said the Jhurimal VSS stands tall among the other VSSs for its excellent performance in protecting and preserving the forest ecosystem and income generation activities (IGA) for forest dependent families. And for this, it was conferred the Biju Patnaik Award this year.
VSS president Dilip Patel said with support of the Forest department and partner NGO Sewak the Jhurimal VSS has developed its own website (www.vssjhurimal.com). He claimed that Jhurimal is the only VSS in the country to have its own portal.