This is a multi-objective initiative project that aims at upscaling Community Tenure and Jurisdiction for tribal and forest dwellers in India.

Launched on January 1, 2018 in collaboration with Tenure Facility, Sweden.

The Tenure Facility (TF) project is a multi-objective initiative that aims at upscaling Community Tenure and Jurisdiction for tribal and forest dwellers in India. The central objective is to effectively secure community rights (CR) and forest tenure rights of Indigenous and local communities by creating recognition, awareness and utilization of the Community Forest Rights (CFR) provided by India’s Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006.

Though the FRA (2006) bestows community ownership and protection of forest lands, its poor implementation has added to the increased historical injustice faced by marginalized forest communities, especially in terms of land claims. With a strong focus on FRA, this project aims at facilitating CFR/CR recognition, and at catalyzing this model to several Indian states.

Launched on January 1, 2018 in collaboration with Tenure Facility, this project has the following goals:

1. Upscale CFR Recognition - Work closely with partner organizations and government agencies to create awareness about FRA, and to create a standardized CFR/CR claims-filing process.
2. Provide National Level Training - Train members from civil society organizations, grassroot organizations and academic institutions on FRA by conducting series of workshops and capacity building programs.
3. Enhance Capacity Building - Enhance capacity for effective CRF/CR recognition district-wise in several Indian states.
4. Create Socio-ecological Monitoring System - Support community forest governance with socio-economic monitoring systems that can help assess social, ecological and economic impacts of CFR/CR governance.
5. Develop a Web Platform - Develop web platform to allow users visualize data spatially at Administrative (state, district, and sub-district) and Political constituency (assembly and parliamentary) levels.
6. Engage Key Private Sectors - Identify and engage key private sectors and involve them in the community rights project.
7. Design Project Monitoring Systems - Design project monitoring systems to track progress at every stage; create systems to enable adaptability and ability to respond effectively to emerging challenges and opportunities.

Along with the above stated goals the phase 02, which was launched on April 01, 2021 certain additional objectives:

1. Developing long-term relationships between communities and markets - developing value chains for NTFP based economies of scale building on community forest tenure security. Creating a guild of businesses engaging in sustainable forest management and responsible livelihood security. This will explore linkages to industrial supply chains in processed wild foods, alternative medicine, nature-based cosmetics, sustainable paper-and-pulp among other sectors and attract industrial investment.  The proposal essentially is to set up a design for a decentralized system of collection of wi1d foods, medicina1 herbs, procurement, processing for va1ue-addition, marketing, and establishment of industries to work in collaboration with local communities to support a forest-based economy
2. Leveraging technology to monitor forests and its resources - Mapping of Forest commodities using GIS and video analytics. Designing collaborative tools for community knowledge and awareness along with generating multimodal visibility across stakeholder networks.
3. Knowledge and research - Creating a systematic body of research for linking Forest communities and market commodities. Developing an inclusive platform for technology and knowledge sharing amongst stakeholders. -Establishing a multi-lingual, multimedia communication pathway for all stakeholders.

ISB team is working on Forest Governance Data Visualization Portal that is already operational and will continue to be updated and upgraded. This data portal is capable of visualizing spatial, temporal and cross-sectional data. The data portal will allow users to visualize data spatially both at Administrative (state, district, and sub-district) and Political boundary (assembly constituency and parliamentary constituency) levels. Users can also generate preferential summary reports, graphs/charts, maps etc. and provide the option to download these.