ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Directions Q.No.(

61-65): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below. Social forestry programmes in India form one of the largest and most innovative experiments in participatory forestry anywhere, and also one of the largest interventions designed to improve the

productivity and use of communal land. Social forestry had its formal origins in India with the report of the National Commission of Agriculture of 1976, which recommended growing trees on lands accessible to village people in order to reduce the pressures on forests set aside for production forestry brought about by mounting rural demands for fuel, grazing and other forest products. It was then that India embarked upon a social forestry project with the aim of taking the pressure off the forests and making use of all unused and fallow land. Social forestry projects and programmes were initiated in most states during the first half of the 1980s. Government forest areas that are close to human settlement have been degraded over the years due to human activities and thus need to be afforested. Trees are to be planted in and around agricultural fields. Planting of trees along railway lines and roadsides, and river and canal banks is also carried out. They are planted in village common lands, government wasteland and panchayat land.