The Kalpavalli (“eternal source of abundance”) programme promotes community-based natural resource management and biodiversity conservation in a 6,000-acre expanse of village common lands referred to as the Kalpavalli Community Conservation Area (KCCA). The programme seeks to reverse the damage done to this significant productive ecosystem (located in a rain shadow area) because of deforestation, overgrazing, forest fires, climate change, etc.
The programme was initiated in Mustikovela village in 1992. There were two main goals – to mobilise people to manage their common lands and enhance local biodiversity on a severely degraded landscape. After more than a year of efforts to convince them (which included organising a visit to a community conserved forest in Chittoor District), the people of Mustikovela began protecting 125 acres of common land and took up large-scale seed/sapling plantation and soil/water management activities.
The positive impacts of this were soon evident, and over the years, nine more villages joined the initiative. In November 2008, the Kalpavalli Tree Growers’ Cooperative was registered as a federation of the village-level FPCs.Timbaktu Collective is an organisation based in Anantpur district of Andhra Pradesh.
1992- mobilisation of this village through regular conversations
1993- villagers agreed to regenerate 150 acres of their waste common lands
2004- eight villages in the area had started regenerating forests in their vicinity with the help of newly established village level forest protection committees (FPCs)