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Ownershio limitations: The forests have been classified in three
categories; Reserved, Protected and Unmanaged.
Reserved Forests: are legally owned by the state and managed by
the Forest Department. These forests are not burdened with any
rights.
Protected Forests: are legally owned bv the state and managed by
the Forest Department, Part of these forests are known as the
"Nistari" forests (Forests in which Tribals have concessions)
wherein the rights of local people are preserved for collection
of fuelwood, small timber for their own consumption, and other
minor forest products and bamboo and grazing.
Unmanaged Forests: are areas of Forest lands, some with sparse
tree cover, which are outside Madhya Pradesh Forest Department
management at present and are used collectively by local people.
There is legal machinerv for declaring these areas as Protected
forests and from that step, their future usage can be channelled
either to "nistari" forests or Reserved Forests.
In selecting areas for large scale intensive forest management,
only areas under reserved forests and those parts of the pro-
tected forests which are considered to be free of 'nistari'
claims are to be included.
As already mentioned forests are extensive over the Bastar dis-
trict in Mahva Pradesh. Even allowing for substantial areas to
be set aside for protection forests in consideration of phvsical
limitations and 'nistari' forests the areas remaining would pro-
vide adequate supplies of timber for the large scale forest in-
dustrial development. The suggested format for relating physical
conditions to vossible land utilization categories is given in
Table 1.
Table 1 Possible forest land utilization categories
Environmental considerations relating to erosion control and
watershed management, retention of eco-svstems and establishment
of game santuaries need to be assessed and taken into consideration
for each category mentioned below:
Categorv Management Purpose
a) Flatter areas in accessible Intensive management - fast
and reasonable close proximity growing plantation development.
of say 1000 ha or more.
b) More broken areas but with Longer term Shorea robusta (Sal)
deep soils and no risk of regeneration and Tectona grandis
erosion from forestrv activi- (Teak) plantation development.
ties.
C) Broken areas, and steeper Combination of some or all of
slopes. the following: Selection felling,
collection areas for minor forest
produce by local peonle.
d) High erosion risk areas. Full nrotection.
e) Nistari forests. Management for oroduction of
local timber requirements, minor
forest products and grazing.