New Delhi:The Government has been implementing a number of schemes and programmes to provide support, mainly to the States and Union Territories, for regeneration of degraded forests through people’s participation. In pursuance of the National Forest Policy 1988, the Ministry of Environment and Firsts has adopted Joint Forest Management (JFM) as the main strategy for regeneration of degraded forests. As on 31.3.2006, there were 106482 Joint Forest
Management Committees (JFMCs) covering an area of 22.02 million hectares. The Ministry is also supporting the JFM porgramme by implementing the National Afforestation Programme (NAP) scheme through Forest Development Agencies (FDAs) at the forest division level and JFMCs at the village level to regenerate degraded forests and adjoining areas. As on 15.2.2008, the Ministry has approved 753 FDA projects to treat 1.34 million hectares through 26772 JFMCs at a total cost of Rs.2063.8 crores, out of which Rs. 1461.10 cores have been released till that date.