Shifting Paradigms of ANR Practices for Forest Productivity, Livelihoods and Biodiversity1

Pranab R Choudhury2, Vinod Kumar3, Rajiv Kumar4

1. Changing Paradigms in Forestry and ANR

Rehabilitation and restoration of degraded tropical forest landscapes to augment forest productivity and carbon sink, to conserve and enhance biodiversity as well as to meet the community and livelihoods needs has now become the focus of forest management policy and practice globally and also in India. Considering the local implications in the context of food and livelihood security, adaptation and resilience to climate change, community participation in forest governance and global implications of carbon sink, biodiversity conservation, attention and investment towards degraded forests, whose area had increased considerably over last decades due to varied economic and political reasons, has grown substantially. Assisted or Aided Natural Regeneration (ANR), based on the principles of secondary succession is fast gaining acceptance as the key strategy for rehabilitation of degraded tropical forest landscapes. In South-east Asia, ANR is regarded as a flexible approach to reforestation. It uses the natural regeneration of forest trees (wildlings or natural seedlings, and sprouts) and assists natural regeneration to grow faster through tending operations. Supplemented with traditional knowledge and involvement of the local community, it has been found to be effective and adaptive practice for landscape restoration through augmented natural regeneration and enrichment plantations. ANR technique is aimed to reduce bias in favour of a few forest species in a forest community, instead favouring plant community growth with increasing number of species adjudged useful for livelihood and conservation locally, and for productivity in terms of growing density, canopy cover and biodiversity with passage of years. Early indicator of good ANR application is positive changes in forest cover. ANR in India forms the dominant component of the National Afforestation Plan (NAP), Government of Indias flagship afforestation program. NAP aims to support and accelerate the ongoing process of devolving forest protection, management and development functions to decentralized institutions of Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) at the village level. It has covered a total area of about 1.69 million ha over a decade (2000-10) spreading over 42,535 JFMCs in 800 Forest Development Agencies (FDA) at a cost of Rs. 2237.36 Crore (GOI, 2011a). ANR also forms the major strategy for rehabilitation of forest land under externally aided forestry projects being operated in 11 states of India at an investment of Rs. 5718 crore (GOI, 2011b).

Paper to be presented in Odisha Environment Congress, organized in Bhubaneswar, India during 22nd 24th December, 2011 2 General Consultant, OFSDP 3 PCCF & Project Director, OFSDP 4 Joint Project Director, OFSDP

Apart from provisions of planting of a fewer number of trees (e.g., 200 plants per ha in NAP and 300 plants per ha in Orissa Forestry Sector Development Project) in comparison to other block plantation models (e.g. bamboo and mixed plantations with 625-1,100 plants/ha), ANR operations consists of soil moisture conservation and cleaning (including high stump cutting, singling etc.) works. These are usually being carried out by VSS through community participation and participatory micro planning (GOI, 2002).

2. Accommodating to Changing Contexts through Shifting Paradigms in ANR Practices

Forest management in India has changed its gear from commercial/revenue driven timber species based management with dominant state custodianship to conservation and livelihoods oriented joint forest management with community involvement since eighties. Conservation of biodiversity entering policy agenda through wildlife protection and tiger conservation focus in seventies has grown to become mainstream agenda following India becoming signatory to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992 and with formulation of National Biodiversity Action Plan, and constitution of National Biodiversity Authority and State Biodiversity Boards. Later, in the first decade of 21st century, right-based approach to forests with enunciation of Forest Rights Act, 2006 and subsequently focus on legitimization of joint-management through involvement of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) and reliance on convergence as a strategy has significantly influenced forest as a resource and its management. Livelihoods5 of the forest fringe communities has become mainstreamed to national policy agenda with National Forest Policy, 1988 emphasizing poverty alleviation and livelihoods promotion in forest margins. Most of the externally aided projects in forestry sector in India have also been contributing significantly to integrate livelihood concerns of forest-dependent poors as one of the key agenda and outcome for changed forest management. REDD+ (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation) under UNFCCC, has assumed significant global importance as a cost effective mitigation strategy in the context of climate change with potential livelihoods and conservation benefits. REDD reddiness processes have begun in many developing countries including India, where significant efforts have been underway to tackle deforestation and rewrite compensatory conservation, sustainable forest management and community participation. In these shifting contours of forest management, regeneration, tending and harvesting operations requires responding and adapting to the changing paradigms and needs. Silvicultural operations now need to meet the often conflicting needs of economy (local and global), ecology and society. Forest management processes need to integrate participation, livelihoods, gender equity, democratization
5

Ironically, the forested landscapes of the country overlap with its tribal concentration and also with poverty geographies. Some 275 million rural poor, almost one fourth of Indian population, depend on forests for part of their livelihoods. About one third of Indian villages are either situated in the forest margins or has forest as one of the land uses.

and decentralization agenda and concerns while maintaining technical integrity in harmony with ecological processes. Assisted Natural Regeneration, the existing dominant forest management practice in India, has to accommodate these needs, concerns and processes to enhance adaptation and resilience of forests to changing contexts.

3. ANR Processes : Flexibility and Scope

ANR is a flexible and eco-social approach to reforestation through aided or accelerated natural regeneration, which can be relied upon to restore degraded landscapes through various silvicultural, ecological and participatory processes. ANR technologies in South-east Asia comprise site selection, site assessment, site-species matching, site modification such as shade opening, supplemental or enrichment planting of appropriate species, protection and maintenance, and monitoring (Sajise, 2003). The process aids or assists natural regeneration through tending and silvicultural operations including soil and moisture conservation measures. It utilizes natural processes and promotes regeneration of indigenous species (Dugan, et al., 2002) by employing operations like fire-control, restricted grazing, suppression of weed growth and involvement of local people (Ganz and Durst, 2003). Number of trees to be retained at different age groups (viz. retaining a minimum of 25, 200, 1,600 and 20,000 per hectare of evenly distributed nuclei trees, pole-size trees, saplings and seedlings, in Indonesia respectively) during ANR operation can also be prescribed and thereby enrichment planting with tending operations can be done for sites with insufficient number of poles, saplings, seedlings (i.e., open canopy) (Soegiri and Pramono, 2003). Table 1: Potential Multiple Returns through ANR Aspects Scopes/Processes
Not necessary to establish nursery, wildings can be used; Involves singling and high stump cutting operations, SMC measures, thinning operations; fire/grazing management, weeding/cleaning, insitu composting etc Maintains the integrity of the soil and involves minimum soil disturbance; promotes hydrologic integrity and biotic functions; promotes use of indigenous knowledge (IK); helps blending of traditional knowledge Treats local communities as an integral part and encourages participatory processes and

Returns
Faster and cheaper;, provides intermittent return to community through fuel wood and small timber etc. and enhanced livelihoods return through increased NTFP production; augments forest productivity through expedited growth of rootstock, diameter increment and nutrient recycling.

Economic (livelihoods & silvicultural)

Ecological (biodiversity and local ecological knowledge perspectives) Social (community participation,

Promotes and conserves biodiversity; maintains the original vegetation stand and corresponding ecosystem functions; with modern scientific forestry

Provides remunerative employment to the local community; promotes empowerment ; effective in remote locations where government

empowerment and livelihoods perspectives)

involvement of women; labor intensive, provides scope for use of IK and traditional institutions;

approaches have not been very successful

Source: Adapted from Bansal et al (2011)

4. Potential of ANR for Enhancing Forest Productivity, Augmenting Biodiversity & Improving Livelihoods
Forest productivity denotes the ability of a forest to produce biomass-timber and NTFP and hence is crucial vis--vis forests role as carbon sink and its contribution to local and Nations economy. Forest productivity is a function of site quality, species-site matching, genetic quality of species being grown as well as silvicultural and tending operations. In tropical degraded forests in India, with scrubby vegetations consisting of coppice crops (viz. that of sal), scope of manipulating genetic quality of species, and changing of site quality (through shifting) is very limited. Therefore species-site matching, (in case supplemental/ enrichment planting is carried out) and silvicultural and tending operations including soil moisture conservation and nutrient recycling measures hold key to increase productivity. Apart from its scale of operation, provision for and with scope of manipulation of such operations under ANR, make it a very important tool in the context of present forest management paradigm. There has been a spate of consciousness, recognition and activities towards promotion of biodiversity conservation following Earth Summit in Rio, wherein India became a signatory to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). Biodiversity conservation as a sustainability strategy, as key ecosystem services/products and as a potential contributor to local and national economy, has become a main driver of forest management in policy and practice. In the context of tropical forests and their degrading trend, ANR with its ability to arrest retrogressions, facilitate succession, species enrichment and moisture augmentation, has significant implications on the biodiversity regime. Livelihoods promotion of forest dependent communities became one of the key agenda of forest policy after NFP, 1988. Subsequently with JFM resolutions, realization of NTFP as key livelihoods and forest product and resultant policy changes in many states including Odisha as well as with implementation of new generation of bilateral forestry projects, livelihoods improvement of forestdependent and fringe communities have become center-stage of forest management in India. With high percentage of degraded forests and their higher concentration in potential JFM areas, ANR has the potential to influence forest contribution to community livelihoods, it having provisions for species and productivity manipulation.

5. Rationale of the Study

While degradation status of Indias forest and their higher concentration in JFM areas (in forest margins close to habitations) is a major concern, optimizing their productivity, biodiversity and contribution to local livelihoods is a big challenge. ANR being employed as the main tool for forest management in these areas through JFM, it is very important to analyze and understand ANR implications on these crucial returns to national and local economy as well as on ecology and 4

biodiversity. This paper is an attempt to contribute towards this knowledge base, on which limited information is available. Relying on a recent study conducted by OFSDP, this paper presents an analysis of the implications of ANR on biodiversity, forest productivity and livelihoods along a temporal scale.

6. Odisha and OFSDP

In Orissa, the ANR approach was first used in the SIDA assisted social forestry project during the early 1990s with the involvement of the village forest committee (VFC). Now it is applied to the Rehabilitation of Degraded Forests (RDF) through the JFM mode and is aimed at augmenting productivity of fuel wood, fodder, small poles, non timber forest products (NTFPs), medicinal plants, etc. Under NAP, during 2003-10, 103,360 hectares of afforestation was taken up with an expenditure of Rs. 93.45 crores Thus total achievement under other afforestation programs6 was over 11,780 ha during only 2009-10. ANR-mode of afforestation constituted about 3/4th of the total area under afforestation. (GOO, 2009). In the programmes of OFSDP (www.ofsdp.org) assisted by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), ANR forms the major forest treatment intervention. Eighty percent of 1.76 lakh ha of degraded forests in 2,275 forest-fringe villages are being covered through ANR following the JFM approach (OFSDP, 2007). ANR in OFSDP has been designed to facilitate natural regeneration of degraded forests with existing rootstocks. Prescribed practices under ANR, are singling of coppice shoots, removal of high stumps and climbers apart from planting of short rotation economic species like NTFPs and medicinal plants (@ 300 plants/ha) in gaps to incentivize the Van Samrakshyan Samiti (VSS) or JFMC (SAPROF, 2005).

7. Impact of ANR on Forest Productivity, Livelihoods and Biodiversity (OFSDP Study) 7.1 Methodology
To analyze the impact of ANR treatments taken up under over an age gradient (by different programs/schemes in Odisha) on the forest composition, structure, and floral biodiversity, a study was carried out by OFSDP in 2010-11. Vegetation data (viz. no of individuals of trees, shrubs and herbs and basal area/dbh of trees) through quadrant method was collected from 72 sites over four seasons i.e. post monsoon period October-December, spring season February to April, pre monsoon of April to June from the forest divisions of Baliguda, Koraput, Rourkela, Jeypore and Phulbani by studying sites with age gradient of the schemes viz. OFSDP (after 2 to 3 years of ANR intervention), FDA (after 5 to 7 years of ANR intervention), RLTAP(after 10 to 12 years of ANR intervention) and Social Forestry (after 20 years of ANR intervention). Biodiversity Index ( using three different biodiversity indices- Berger-Parker Index of Dominance, Shannon-Wiener Index and Simpson Diversity Index), phyto-sociology and soil organic carbon were calculated using standard methods.

Excluding NAP and OFSDP; afforestation schemes include RLTAP (Revised Long Term Action Plan), under Universalization JFM etc.

7.2

Caveats

We have used the results to present and analyze the emerging trends with respect to biodiversity, forest productivity and livelihoods as a result of ANR operations. It must be indicated that these operations have been carried out under different schemes/projects as mentioned above by project staff and community with different skills and may have included different set of combinations of prescriptions (viz. cleaning, weeding, high stump cuttings, climber cuttings, soil moisture conservation, enrichment planting etc.) with different intensities. The state (of degradation/retrogression) and types of forest (mixed deciduous/sal coppice) could also be variable. However, considering the fact that such diversities are imminent considering ANRs scale of operation and practical field situation in departmental/project mode of implementation (unlike limited scale research projects), we have tried to find the differences emerging with age of treated forest after ANR operation and in comparison with control (without ANR treatment). Considering our experience and interpretation of field situations, ANR can be broadly defined as cleaning, weeding, singling and enrichment planting along with site specific high stump cutting, climber cutting and soil moisture conservation, in the context of this paper. The findings and analysis of this paper must be appreciated with this caveat.

7.3

Trends with respect to Forest Biodiversity

1. Berger Parker Index

This is a simple dominance measure, reverse of biodiversity. It helps in interpretation of the relative abundances of the various species in the ecosystem. It expresses the proportional abundance of most abundant species.
6.50 6.00 5.50 5.00 4.50 4.00 3.50 3.00 after 2 yrs after 5 yrs after 10 yrs after 20 yrs

B-P Index
ANR Tree

Control Tree
ANR Shrub Control Shrub ANR Herb Control Herb

The trend reflects higher values of index for trees, shrubs and herbs in control in comparison to ANR treated area, indicating more abundance/dominance of particular species in control areas. In ANR treated areas, dominance was more evident among herbs followed by trees. Shrubs have shown least dominance. However in control plots, dominance was variable among types of species as well as across time gradient. In ANR treated area, dominance among trees and shrubs are found to increase till 10 years, after which it is found to reduce. 6

Higher index for herb after 2 years of treatment reflects the impact of cleaning operation during which most of the herbs are cut down and the dominance of the most resilient ones (also invasive) which came up in abundance in following years. Herbal dominance is also found to reduce marginally after 20 years, indicating lower dominance of herb species under ANR than control. This could be an indication of controlling invasive weeds with increase in tree canopy.

2. Simpson Scale
Simpsons richness index (D) represents the probability of occurrence of two individuals randomly selected from a sample belongs to the same species (or some category other than species). Simpsons Index of Diversity (1-D) on the contrary represents the probability that two individuals randomly selected from a sample will belong to different species. Greater the value of this index, greater the diversity in sample population.

0.95

Simpson Scale

0.90

ANR Tree Control Tree

0.85

ANR Shrub
Control Shrub

0.80

ANR Herb Control Herb

0.75 after 2 yrs after 5 yrs after 10 yrs after 20 yrs

The trend reflects higher values of index for trees, shrubs in control in comparison to ANR treated area, while in case of herbs there is variability across age gradient. While the index difference for trees species is comparatively less between control and ANR, there is a wider wedge for shrub species. This could be an indication of impact of cleaning operation on shrubs, as following ANR operations, the diversity shows immediate reduction in index value (many species being felled selectively) along with a gradual increase in diversity in subsequent years till 10 years, after which it is found to reduce. In ANR treated areas, diversity is more evident among herbs followed by trees and shrubs have shown least dominance, however in control plots, dominance was variable among types of species as well as across time gradient. While herb diversity has been found to gradually decrease till 10 years after ANR operations, the diversity of tree and shrub species is found to increase gradually till 10th year.

3. Shanon Weiner Index

Shannon-Weaver Index is one of several diversity indices used to measure diversity in categorical data. The advantage of this index is that it takes into account the number of species and the evenness of the species.

S-W Index
3.00 2.90 2.80 2.70 2.60 2.50 2.40 2.30 2.20 2.10 2.00 after 2 yrs after 5 yrs after 10 yrs after 20 yrs

ANR Tree Control Tree ANR Shrub Control Shrub ANR Herb Control Herb

S-W index demonstrated almost similar trend as that of Simpsons. Except for herbs, the diversity index is lower after ANR operations than control. Here also shrub diversity after ANR found to substantially reduce after ANR than the control. The value of S-W index for control and ANR treatments for trees, shrubs and herbs found to be lower than the value of 2.94 found out in tropical humid secondary forests in Garo hills (Kumar et al 2006)

4. Overall Interpretation
A perusal of trends with reference to three biodiversity indices studied, as would be evidenced from the deliberations present below, indicates decrease in diversity of trees and shrubs after ANR operations than control, indicating increasing dominance of certain species. However, herb diversity seems to be showing a marginal increase after ANR than control. While subsequent to ANR, the diversity as well as dominance of trees and shrubs found to be increasing till 10 years along with reduction of the indices for herbs, after 20th year decrease in diversity and dominance for trees and shrubs are quite evident. An interesting observation is that after 20 years of ANR, tree and shrub diversity index (both Simpson and S-W) demonstrate downward trend, while herb diversity showed a marginal increase. In comparison to control, shrub diversity reduction looks quite higher in comparison to reduction in case of trees and herbs.

5. Dominant species
Dominant species in the sample sites (reference and control) are found to be Shorea robusta, Holarrhena pubescens, Diospyros melanoxylon followed by Buchanania lanzan, Terminalia alata, 8

Tectona grandis, Antidesma acidum and Catunaregam spinosa etc. Total number of trees under ANR
was about 1331/ha while under control it was 1739/ha. With ANR, dominance of Sal seems to be decreasing, on an average about 183 sal trees/ha is observed under ANR while under control it is about 349/ha. Sal is dominating in ANR treatments after 2 and 20 years, while in control it is dominating in 2, 5 and 20 years plots. Holarrhena seems to be dominating after ANR closely followed by Diospyros from the emerging trends. However, number of individuals under both these species are marginally lesser in ANR than control area.

Dominant Species (no/ha)

Shorea robusta 678 159 257 338 After 2 years 783 265 288 177 After 5 years 208 175 5 After 10 years Project Holarrhena pubescens 593 202 178 211 After 20 years 722 208 225 183 Average 708 206 251 429 After 2 years Diospyros melanoxylon 1,096 322 199 401 After 5 years Others

832

1,028 194 252 104 After 10 years Reference

905
207 233

934 232 234 349 Average

464
After 20 years

7.4 Trends with respect to Forest productivity: age gradation, tree density & volume table, soil carbon
1) No of trees/ha Dominance of 10-20 cm diameter-class in both control and ANR areas confirms the coppice nature of the crop. There were about 1331 no of total individuals in ANR versus 1739 in control on an average. In percentage terms, on an average, there is little difference among the diameter class distribution between control and ANR area. However in terms of numbers, the ANR area has less number of individuals across age classes as well as corresponding to years after treatment (or no treatment) except for 0-5cm and 5-10cm age classes after 2 years. This is an indication of better regeneration with diversity due to ANR operations.

1,000

0-5 cm

5 to 10

No of trees/ha (Diameter class in cm)

10 to 20 20 to 25 25 to 40

40 to 100

>100

500

After 2 years After 5 years After 10 years ANR After 20 years Average After 2 years After 5 years After 10 years Control After 20 years Average

2) No of trees after ANR Vs no of trees in Standard Volume Table/ha Age gradation of degraded JFM area with coppice regeneration is not comparable with that of standard volume table. No exercise had been also undertaken for volume estimation on felling of growing crop from age classes. However to understand the distribution, an attempt was made to compare the control and ANR treated area against age gradation of standard volume table. In comparison to age class distribution in standard volume table, ANR operations have yielded forests with lower number of individuals up to 10 cm and above 20 cm diameter classes. However between 10-20 cm diameters classes, the numbers were either just below standard volume table or more than that (in case of ANR after 2 years). Though similar trend is conspicuous in case of control forests, they are found to have number of individuals with less than 5 cm dia (new recruits) and 20-25 cm dia class just below than that prescribed in standard volume table (except for forests after 2 years of ANR).

No of trees in Volume Table Vs after ANR treatment (as per Girth at Breast Height in cm)
1600 1200 800 400 0 0 to 5 5 to 10 Number of Tree ANR after 10 years 10 to 20 20 to 25 25 to 40 ANR after 5 years 40 to 100 ANR after 2 years ANR after 20 years

No of trees in Volume Table Vs Control (as per Girth at Breast Height in cm)
1600 1200 800 400 0 0 to 5 5 to 10 Number of Tree ANR after 10 years 10 to 20 20 to 25 25 to 40 ANR after 5 years 40 to 100 ANR after 2 years ANR after 20 years

3) Tree Density (no/ha)

Number of trees/ha after ANR treatment was found to be less than the control across the temporal scale. While the difference is lower after 2 years, the gap gets wider subsequently.

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Tree Density (per ha)

2,000 1,600 1,200 800 400 after 2 yrs after 5 yrs after 10 yrs after 20 yrs

ANR Tree Density

Control Tree Density

4) Basal area after ANR treatment

Basal area (sq m/ha) after ANR treatment was found to be less than the control across the temporal scale. While the difference is lower after 2 years, the gap gets wider subsequently.

Basal Area (sqm/ha)

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 after 2 yrs after 5 yrs ANR Basal Area after 10 yrs Control Basal Area after 20 yrs

5) Soil carbon (kg/ton of soil) after ANR treatment

Soil carbon found to be more in ANR area than the control, except after 5 years. The difference is more after 2 and 20 years and marginally more after 10 years. Increased soil carbon indicates increasing productivity of soil and also higher carbon capture in soil through recycling of cut and weeded materials.

Soil Carbon (Kg/t of soil)

200.00

175.00
150.00 after 2 yrs after 5 yrs ANR Soil Carbon after 10 yrs Control Soil Carbon after 20 yrs

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7.5

Trends with respect to returns to Livelihoods:

A. Employment generation
ANR operations provide substantial employment (about 82 MD/ha) to remote forest-fringe village communities (as per OFSDP procedure to the JFM village) during first 4 years of ANR operations.

B. NTFP-link and IGA

Degraded forests under JFM are usually eco-tone zones with higher biodiversity of NTFP, especially herbs, climbers and tubers, which are frequently relied upon by the forest-dependent communities to meet their food, medicine and income needs. Under JFM projects, income generation activities around NTFP are encouraged to supplement/augment income of forest-dependent households. ANR provides scope for restocking of these species through block/diffused (under/shade) planting of tree species. The major NTFPs and medicinal plants species found in ANR area includes Diospyros melanoxylon,

Mangifera indica, Pongamia pinnata, Terminalia alata, Terminalia belerica, Terminalia chebula, Aegle marmelos, Tridax procumbens, Buchanania lanzan, Oroxylum indicum, Nyctanthes arbortristis, Holarrhena pubescens, Azadirachta indica, Rauvolfia serpentine, Dioscorea glabra and Soymida febrifuga. In the project covered area, dominance of the Shorea robusta and other abundant species is
less than the reference area.

C. Income from cleaning and thinning, meeting fuel wood and small timber need
About 2-4 quintal of cleaning materials (fuel wood mostly, occasional small timbers) are generated per ha of ANR operations, which is mostly distributed among villagers or disposed to earn income. This is a kind of direct immediate return to the community after coming under JFM mode, which acts as a very good incentive. Most of the ANR areas being coppice origin forests, vigorous growth of coppice shoots emerge following JFM protection and tending of available crop, making requirement of thinning operations evident at regular intervals. As part of standardization of ANR protocols, such thinning cycle has to be further studied and standardized, which has huge potential to contribute to community income and for increasing productivity of growing forest crop with biodiversity.

8. Conclusion
Some 275 million rural poor, almost one fourth of Indian population, depend on forest for part of their livelihoods. About one third of Indian villages are either situated in the forest margins or has forest as one of the land uses. Joint Forest Management has been the main form of forest management of these forests since nineties. These are usually degraded forests, with lower canopy density, presenting transitional ecotone situations with more biotic interactions. Ecologically they represent either retrogressing vegetation or sub-climax with higher incidence of grazing, fire and biotic interactions for livelihood. In northern India as well as in Odisha, these forests consist of mostly coppice crops (emerging from an existing rootstock) of Sal and associate species. These forests consist of considerable geographical areas and have significant national and local implications in the 12

ecological and economic contexts particularly with respect to the biomass productivity, biodiversity and livelihoods. Better and effective management of these forests is incumbent upon availability of scientific information on their structure, composition, biodiversity, productivity. However, such information is scarcely available, largely due to lack of scientific research enquiry. Absence of availability of analytical research information on the impact of different forest-management systems being implemented on such forests on these critical parameters, further widen these gaps. Information on behavior of coppice crops to ANR like treatments, for example, is not available as management of coppice crops through silvicultural systems was stopped in Odisha in 1980s. This paper is a small attempt in this direction towards bridging that gap and enable forest officers, managers and other stakeholders including community in understanding and assessing the impact in the context of goals of Joint Forest Management. The results of this indicate the trend emerging over a 20 years period after ANR operation is carried out. This period shows some intermediate critical changes in vegetation structure and diversity. Changes during 10-20 years period after a major forest operation is very important in the context of transition towards canopy stratification with the main tree crops starting to dominate the shrubs. The trends of increasing diversity of herbs (and young recruits of tree species) is an indication of increased regeneration of shade bearing species and trees in undergrowths/ground cover in place of the light demanding shrubs/herbs. The invasive species which were earlier dominating due to the opening of canopy during ANR, are gradually getting replaced with tree canopy bringing in more shade. Such a phenomenon reestablishes the potential of ANR to suppress weed growth as documented for Imperata areas on SE Asia and in augmenting tree regenerations which are progressions in the right direction. While drawing attention to and moderately contributing the need of generation of such information for better decision making and more effective forest management, we also argue for more research and enquiry in this important ecosystem and around this widely used tool of ANR. The impact of ANR operations also need to be considered along with the impact of biotic interactions of grazing and fire which are all pervasive in such forest-fringe ecosystems.

Acknowledgement
OFSDP is being funded by JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency). This paper has relied on the data generated through a Study commissioned by the project on Impact of ANR Practices on Biodiversity which was carried out by CTRAN Consulting Private Limited under guidance of the Project Management Unit and General Consultants of the Project. Authors acknowledge these supports, along with field learning from communities. Authors are also thankful to the project staff, partner NGOs and fellow team members at the Project Management Unit and the General Consultants.

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