Chhattisgarh has 44% of geographical area under forest and is very rich in biodiversity and tradition based knowledge. All are aware that continuous exploitation of forest resource for wood and non-wood forest products is leading to major drop in over all yield and diversity of the forest resources. In the past several attempts were made to conserve the forest without appropriate emphasis on livelihood of dependent local communities and the results were not very encouraging from the Biodiversity Conservation Point of view. The national forest policy, 1988 in right earnest advocated for the linkage of natural resource management with the sustainable livelihood to local communities. The proposed project is a step towards this direction. This project is funded by UNDP-GOI and is facilitated through Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) GOI.
            The total outlay of the project is Rs. 2.50 crores and the project period is 3 years. The project is implementing by Chhattisgarh State Minor Forest Produce (Trading & Development) Co-op Federation Ltd. The proposed project is  implementing in 3 forest divisions of the state i.e. involving approximately 9364.653 ha. of forest area.