Forests form a critical source of livelihood for the poorest in the most backward and tribal regions of Orissa. This dependence is mostly in terms of collection of various kinds of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) available in the forest. About 40-50 lakhs poor, who are landless or marginal farmers mostly belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities depend critically on NTFP livelihood. Kendu leaf is one of the most important cash income giving NTFP, it alone generates more than one crore person-days of employment during summer. Although NTFPs constitute a major source of livelihood of poor and marginalized forest dependent families, its market is ridden with various problems like dominance of traders, their unethical trade practices, imperfection in flow of market information, lack of processing and storage facilities, absence of market yard and primary gatherers dealing in the market at individual level with no bargaining power, and policy problems.

Local communities have access and control over the use of forest resources, significantly contributing towards sustainable livelihood of the poor thus, leading to a greater process of economic decentralisation.

Vasundhara has been addressing forest based livelihood issues over the past few years at different levels. Initially Vasundhara was primarily involved in research and advocacy on livelihood issues related to forests. Learnings from these research and advocacy initiatives helped in realizing that mere policy changes without proactive efforts at the ground level may not ensure proper livelihood from NTFPs. Keeping these in view Vasundhara have been working towards facilitating collectivisation of the trade through an alternative trade system/ network owned and managed by the primary gatherers and develop a market information system.