BIDAR: Soil and water conservation and scientific afforestation have resulted in an increase of forest cover by 6.2 per cent in the district in the last four years. Officials said the secret behind the success was people's involvement in government programmes. Afforestation efforts took a quantum leap in 2003. The year before, plantations were done only on 100 acres. But in 2003, plantations were raised on 2,000 acres. This increased to 2,500 acres in the next two years. At the end of three years, afforestation was completed on 7,000 acres. Bidar has 1.13 lakh acres under forest cover, nearly 9 per cent of the total land area. With afforestation and scientific conservation methods, it has become the district with the thirteenth largest forest cover in the State. Funding for these efforts came from the National Afforestation Fund, Hyderabad-Karnataka Development Board and the Local Area Development Fund of Bidar MLA Bandeppa Kashempur.

"There has been a change in the way the Forest Department works. Earlier, what we did was similar to policing. We tried to keep people away from forest areas.

"Now, we have realised that the only way we can succeed is by involving people in our efforts," Deputy Conservator of Forests P.C. Ray said.

People's participation was not only ensured by creating Village Forest Committees (VFC) but also by involving them in other programmes.

The department held meetings with farmers whose fields were on forest fringe areas and convinced them about the benefits of rainwater harvesting. "They were reluctant, but once they saw that the soak pits, check dams and boulder checks constructed inside forest areas led to increase in water table in their fields also, they asked us to build some more. They also volunteered to look after these structures and make minor repairs occasionally," he said. As many as 3,000 boulder checks, 1,500 soak pits and 500 check dams have been built across the district. Another innovative idea was to issue "tree pattas" (rights over minor produce) to farmers.

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