Projects

Supporting CFR recognition management with GeoSpatial technology (Supporting data capacity in conservation efforts)

Team:

The Forest Rights Act (FRA) is a landmark legislation in the history of independent India that recognises the multiple historical injustices imposed on forest dwellers in central India since the colonial period. To redress these injustices, the FRA provides for recognising the rights of individuals (viz. Individual Forest Rights or IFRs), communities (Community Rights or CRs and Community Forest Resource or CFR), as well as the habitat rights of particularly vulnerable tribal groups. This study focuses on the potential area that could be incorporated under CFR rights and the locations of the villages with this CFR potential in central India. We use information from the Census of India with maps in a Geographic Information System (GIS) for this effort. Our aim is to assess and map CFR claims using mobile-based GIS applications and host this information on an open-access, multi-lingual WebGIS portal.