The state of Orissa is one of the resource-rich states of eastern India.  Among its natural resources are minerals, forests, and agricultural land.  Millions of people are dependent on the forests for their livelihoods.  Throughout the 1950s-1970s, the lush green cover of the forests was degraded due to government policies for revenue collection and the leasing out of forest land to private companies, who cleared the land for mining and industrialisation purposes.  These changes had a profound effect on forest dwellers’ livelihoods, as they faced immense hardships in the form of recurring drought, water scarcity, firewood shortage, and food insecurity.  Challenged with these adverse conditions, many villages initiated their own forest protection and management systems.  These community-based forest management arrangements, popularly referred to as Community Forest Management (CFM), have had a remarkable impact on forest resources and on people’s lives and livelihoods.  Vast areas of degraded forests have been regenerated all over Orissa as a result of these kinds of activities.  Marginalised groups, especially women, have started to have a role in decision making, management of natural resources, and governance. 

Goal
Vasundhara’s mission is to see communities living in and around forests involved in their conservation and management, and for these communities to have access to and rights over forests that ensure democratic and sustainable governance of forest resources.  The Community Forestry team works toward the people’s vision forming the basis of State policies on forest governance.  Further, we work toward the State and its institutions having accountability with regard to community participation in forest management.  Our goal is to see that equity, social justice, and environmental ethics – the basic principles that define the contours of Vasundhara's work – are ensured at all levels for the recognition of community rights and privileges over forest resources. 

Approach
For a long period, CFM remained invisible, with no acknowledgement of these efforts at any level.  It was during the early 1990s, that the founding members of Vasundhara got involved in documenting these community forestry initiatives, and perceived a need for an institutional anchor to strengthen and support them.

Vasundhara’s initial work entailed understanding creativity of community-based forest management systems, and documentation of case studies aimed at making the CFM groups visible.  Since then, the horizon of the Community Forestry team’s intervention has broadened to include research as well as advocacy.  Our research focuses on different institutional and ecological aspects of community forestry, livelihood issues, and legal and policy aspects.  Our advocacy efforts are directed towards policy changes favorable to community-based management systems.