DFID’s aim - the lasting eradication of poverty - requires environmentally sustainable solutions. The project concept is an enabling action; helping the transition of the forest service to a client-focused approach and improved service delivery to rural poor. Increased support for protection and better management of the natural and physical environment is a key objective of DFID India.

There is a clear link within India between forest management and sustainable rural livelihoods. Some 100 million forest dwellers and 275 million other people depend on forests for their survival. Forest products play an important role in reducing the vulnerability of the poor, helping them sustain livelihoods and offer resource poor households an opportunity to move from coping to growth.

The internationally adopted concept of sustainable forest management (SFM) aims to reverse the current decline of forest and release the potential of forests to provide sustained local, national and global benefits. SFM demands substantial change within forest sector institutions, in particular the role and way of working of public sector agencies. The GoI 1988 National Forestry Policy (NFP) provides a policy framework consistent with SFM and accords priority to environmental stability and meeting the subsistence requirements of local people over industrial use and generating government revenue.

Updated professional training for the all India Forest Service (IFS) and the State Forest Service (SFS) is an urgent requirement for effective interpretation and implementation of the NFP. The challenge is to equip new and serving staff with the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed for successful joint forest management and to balance the often competing social, economic and environmental objectives of local and distant users.

There are currently 2,600 IFS officers, 10,000 SFS officers and 25,000 Forest Rangers engaged with State Forest Departments across India. Their work is mainly to manage legally designated forest, 22% of the total land area of India, which is under increasing pressure from humans and livestock as populations grow and productive common property resources outside reserve and protected forest areas continue to decline.

Central authorities are responsible for induction and in-service training for IFS & SFS officers and will shortly again undertake ranger training. Once in place this will provide a network for IFS & SFS of seven training institutes, with the Indira Ghandi National Forest Academy (IGNFA) Dehra Dun at the apex. In the longer term, the MOEF envisage a national network of forestry training institutes that also embraces the forty or so state institutions which train Deputy Rangers and Forest Guards. This wider network would provide the major conduit for the sharing of best practice in forest management amongst all levels of the forestry profession; with best practice drawn from the experience of flexible and innovative State Forest Departments applying the principles and process of joint forest planning and management (JFPM) across all forest land.

This will be a 27 month project with a goal to ensure sustainable forest management of India's forest resources - regarded as a pre-requisite if the potential for forests on government and private land to make a critical contribution to sustainable rural livelihoods is to be realised.

To develop the capacity of IGNFA and the State Forest Service colleges to provide quality training to IFS and SFS officers in line with the human resource requirements for effective implementation of the 1988 National Forest Policy.

• IGNFA and SFS Colleges at Dehra Dun and Coimbatore operating within a competence based framework for IFS & SFS in-service training.
• Capacity of IGNFA staff an productivity of the institution as a training provider, service centre to MoEF re IFS in-service training co-ordination and apex institution for network of IFS/SFS training institutes strengthened.
• Adequate infrastructure at IGNFA site to accommodate the formative period of a Staff College function within IGNFA.
• Capacity analysis of State Forest Service Training Institutes (ACFs and Rangers) completed.
• Proposed framework for a national network of centrally and state funded forestry training institutes developed.