Farmers for Forests

By supporting the "Grow Forests" programme, individuals can contribute to addressing the critical issues of stagnant forest cover and land degradation in India. Forests play a vital role in mitigating climate change and providing essential ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, freshwater, soil conservation, climate regulation, and biodiversity. Farmers for Forests aim to work towards fulfilling India's commitment to the Paris Agreement by creating a carbon sink of 2.5-3 billion tonnes by 2030, ensuring a sustainable future for humanity.

In the Forest Protection Programme, Farmers for Forests collaborates with farmers to safeguard existing forest lands and restore degraded ones. Through enrollment and contracting, farmers voluntarily participate in the programme, which involves ecological restoration using native species. Regular monitoring, including field surveys and satellite monitoring, ensures the health and growth of trees. Conditional cash transfers are provided to farmers based on the preservation of a certain percentage of tree cover, incentivizing tree and forest conservation. Extensive record-keeping and continuous evaluation contribute to the programme's ongoing improvement and effectiveness.

Recently few wild elephants have migrated from the forests of Chhattisgarh and entered into the Gadchiroli forest range in search of a better habitat. The Gadchiroli region of Maharashtra is not known to have elephants in its forests, hence this has created a lot of conflicts among locals and elephants. Farmers for Forests is working to reduce these Human-Elephant conflicts. F4F along with its partner NGOs is conducting awareness programs for indigenous community members to avoid conflicts with elephants and implement mitigation techniques. F4F is also working is the Forest Department to track the movement of elephants in forests.

F4F along with the Tribal Department of Maharashtra has set up a Mobile Science Lab (MSL). The MSL is a minibus imaginatively designed to accommodate a Science Lab along with its fellow teachers. The MSL along with its teachers travels to remotely located Ashram Schools in Gadchiroli forests and teaches students from the indigenous communities subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy, Ecology, and Climate Change. The teachers focus on imparting knowledge through practical learning by demonstration experiments and giving practical hands-on experience to children.