Natural Resource Management:

It is in the objective of Lok Prerna that motivating and promoting people to protect and nurture their environment, which could contribute the shares in building up a world, which is maintained as if giving home for all the people of today and tomorrow. Accordingly, one of the major belief of the organization is also that the maintaining ecological balance is equally important with the maintenance of balance growth of the society as people can only alive when a good ecological balance is maintained in the environment- so since the initiation of the organization, Lok Prerna gives a special emphasis on the bio-diversity conservation in its targeted areas. Since the Bihar was undivided, the operation area of Lok Prerna is surrounded by the forest and most of the targeted community of Lok Prerna belongs to the tribal who are dependent on the nature mostly for their bread and butter. The consequence of that dependency on the forest is the deputation of the forest over the period at an alarming rate.

Every year Lok Prerna organized awareness programmes for environment protection in its field areas. Trainings, workshops, public meetings and demonstrations were the tools Lok Prerna adopted to mobilize people for the bio-diversity conservation in their respective areas. As in the past, communities had subsistence farming and supplementary income met with the minor forest produces from nearby areas and in the present situation, the forest shrieked the supplementary income squeezed and the intensified surface runoff caused severe erosion to cultivable lands and made the traditional irrigation structures virtually defunct. The people were frequently migrating in lean seasons as wage laborers and come back during the paddy seasons. So, to protect the huge exploitation of forest on one hand and on other hand to protect the huge migration of the community people for their livelihood, Lok Prerna taken initiatives to make the community people aware about the different methods of water conservation to improve the irrigation facility for the cultivation.

Lok Prerna firstly started water shed development in the Devipur, Jarmundi and Pakuria Blocks of Deoghar, Dumka and Pakur Districts respectively. Simultaneously, Lok Prerna also started installing lift irrigation pump in those areas to make the irrigation facility more improved. But it was not enough to improve the irrigation facility at that time. So, Lok Prerna started renovating and repairing existing water sources like ponds, wells etc. Side by side, the organization mobilized farmers to develop 30X40 models and contour bonding in their farm land to preserve the rain water. According to the necessity, in some areas, Lok Prerna constructed check damps too to conserve water of the small rivers. By all these ways, since the last eighteen years of the organization, Lok Prerna able to secure the irrigation facilities of 973 acres of land of small and marginal farmers of 97 villages which ultimately able to minimize the dependency of those communities on the forest for the bread and butter and still the organization is working on the same issue to conserve the bio-diversity as it is.

The other initiative taken by Lok Prerna for the bio-diversity conservation is the plantation. Traditionally natural resource was managed by the community on sustainable basis but due to the massive exploitation of the natural resources by the community for the livelihood in the present situation is become a great threat to the ecology. Natural resources has elements of biodiversity in it and for the sustainable livelihood of the rural community, security of ecology is a most important thing. So that, from the very beginning of the organization, Lok Prerna started plantation in the Devipur, Mohanpur, Palojori blocks of Deoghar District, Jarmundi and Pakuria Blocks of Dumka and Pakur Districts respectively. In this case, Lok Prerna firstly give emphasis on the plantation of fire, fodder and sylvi plants as the community can get the fire wood and fodder according to their requirement from these plants and they haven’t to be dependent any more on the forest for all these thing as it was in the past. During the first ten years of the organization, Lok Prerna conducted plantation programme in Godrosole, Bashahad and Bisanpur on 59 acres of private wastelands of Pahariya and Santhal tribes. Lok Prerna spreading the species of Gamhar, Akasia, Simal, Siris, Bel, Neem, Sagwan, Gulmahar, Subabool, Gujrati Kher, Bass, Mahogini, Jamun, Kohara, Glaricidia, etc. in the 242.62 acre of lands in the Devipur and Mohanpur Block of the Deoghar district. This effort is given as the community can get an alternative source of income by selling the sylvi wood in the market too. On the other hand, after the plantation some grass come out in those previously barren land which is helping to conserve the moistures in those field and for the erosion protection of soil.

Lok Prerna also promotes the plantation of the medicinal plants like Aloevera, Satawar, Ashwagandha, Sarpagandha, etc. in all of its project areas, specially those species which have some marketing value also. By these plantations people become aware of the medicinal values of these plants and also get informed about the process of marketing the mature plants which is a better income generation source for them. This is one other initiative to conserve bio-diversity of the project area of Lok Prerna. This entire medicinal plantation is running in the 57.21 acre of land of Mohanpur and Devipur blocks of Deoghar district. Lok Prerna also promotes the plantation of fruits like, Bel, Mango, Lemon, Oranges, Papaya, Guava, etc. in the aforesaid areas.

Besides that, Lok Prerna also conducted some research on the various issues of bio-diversity for the shake of bio-diversity conservation. Like, “Women’s Role in Wasteland Development” in Devipur, Jarmundi and Pakuria Blocks of Deoghar, Dumka and Pakur district respectively during the year 1995-96. In the year 2004 -05, Lok Prerna conducted another study on the status of small water harvesting structure in sub basin area of Mayurakshi River and it’s relation with community in the perspective of livelihood. The study covered 10 micro watershed catchments situated in 168 villages in 3 blocks namely Jarmundi, Saraiyahat of Dumka and Mohanpur of Deoghar districts. Findings of this study was shared among the different stakeholders of the state including the officials of forest department and the voluntary groups of Santhal Pargana working in the field of natural resource management and this initiative of the organization was to spread the findings among others and to

involve the others to undertake follow up activities in the sphere of natural resource management.

In the year 2009 – 2010 too, a study was planned by LOK PRERNA and CASA, Dumka with the representation by NGO officials, Govt. officials, scientists and Media Representatives to know the Geographical, Economical, Tropical, Traditional, Cultural aspect of the basin of River Motihara named “ADHYAN SAH JAN JAGRAN YATRA”. Lok Prerna is one of the leading organization took part in that study. The study was conducted throughout the river basin of Motihara from the Trikut Hill to Masanjore.

Lok Prerna still involved in the process of Bio-diversity conservation through community mobilization and natural resource management as all the effort to conserve bio-diversity will be failed without ensuring the sustainable livelihood of the community.