trees and agriculture crops on the same land inclusive of the waste patches. It combines forestry with agriculture, thus, altering the simultaneous production of food, fodder, fuel, timber and fruit. Community forestry involves the raising of trees on public or community land such as the village pasture and temple land, roadside, canal bank, strips along railway lines, and schools etc. Community forestry programme aims at providing benefits to the community as a whole.
Community forestry provides a means under which the people of landless classes can associate themselves in tree- raising and thus, get those benefits which otherwise are restricted for landowners. Farm Forestry Farm forestry is a term applied to the process under which farmers grow trees for commercial and non-commercial purposes on their farm lands. Forest departments of various states distribute seedlings of trees free of cost to small and medium farmers. Several lands such as the margins of agricultural fields, grasslands and pastures, land around homes and cow sheds may be used for raising trees under non-commercial farm forestry.
W ILDLIFE You would have visited a zoo and may have seen animals and birds in captivity. Wildlife of India is a great natural heritage. It is estimated that about - per cent of all known plant and animal species on the earth are found in India. The main reason for this remarkable diversity of life forms is the great diversity of the ecosystem which this country has preserved and supported through the ages.
Over the years, their habitat has been disturbed by human activities and as a result, their numbers have dwindled significantly. There are certain species that are at the brink of extinction. Some of the important reasons of the declining of wildlife are as follows: (i) Industrial and technological advancement brought about a rapid increase in the exploitation of forest resources. (ii) More and more lands were cleared for agriculture, human settlement, roads, mining, reservoirs, etc.
(iii) Pressure on forests mounted due to lopping for fodder and fuelwood and removal of small timber by the local people. (iv) Grazing by domestic cattle caused an