Impact of plantations on forest use and forest status in Orissa, India

In Orissa 100 thousand ha of village plantations were established from 1985 to 1992 as an aid project to support the subsistence needs of rural poor a nd to relieve heavy pressure on the natural forests. The aim of this paper is to examine the welfare and environmental effects of these village planta tions. To do this, extensive data collection was needed which included both household utilization of different sources of biomass as well as remote-se nsing information, to establish the status of the vegetation and it's spati al location vis-a-vis the users. The study shows that plantations have the potential for substantial welfare improvements for the target population, e specially women, through increased consumption of biomass, decreased time f or collection and decreased pressure on natural forests. However, intervent ions need to be very selective in order to be successful, with special cons ideration given to plantation location compared to natural forest.