Members of the Land Management Group in Drunggoenpa chiog, Radhi Geog, Trashigang Dzongkhag (Hans van Noord)
Aims / objectives: A Land Management Group (LMG) unites all households of a village and aims to advocate, plan and implement SLM activities, based on the land-based issues of that particular community. The LMG has formal by-laws, drafted interactively with the community, and has its own group saving account, as access to credit and proper savings is still a real constraint in remote areas. A first LMG was started in 2008 in Drunggoenpa chiog in Radhi geog, Trashigang Dzongkhag, East-Bhutan. The idea for the LMG was based on pioneering work of the Renewable Natural Resource Research Centre Bajo, Wangdue Dzongkhag, in Salamji chiog, Dagana Dzongkhag.
Methods: In an effort to reinforce the social cohesion of communities and to improve the efficiency of planning for implementing SLM interventions, SLMP has initiated Land Management Groups. A LMG is considered very useful to overcome one of the main constraints of SLM implementation in Bhutan: labour-shortage. Many individual households have a growing lack of labour and therefore difficulties to implement labour-intensive SLM activities such as terracing, stone bunding or afforestation work.
Stages of implementation: LMGs are especially suitable for smaller communities, where households live relatively close to each other and have a good community bond. Instead of inter-acting with many individual households separately, the extension staff can also target their services, such as training programmes and technical guidance, to the group. The Drunggoenpa LMG was supported in their group formation process with regular meetings and took part in the annual participatory SLM action plan-ning for the chiog, identifying key land-based problems, their causes and possi-ble SLM interventions. Implementation of these SLM activities, such as grass strip establishment, stone check dam construction, group private forest establishment, vegetable production and tree and bamboo plantation, was carried out in a labour-sharing approach. Pooling labour in the group, all the land of the group members is converted or treated.
Role of stakeholders: This enables vulnerable families including single-headed households and the poorest-of-poor, to participate and get access to more labour-intensive SLM interventions. Apart from the pure SLM interventions, attention is given to cash-generating activities such as vegetable production and potato cultivation, to enhance the livelihoods of the farmers.
Other important information: Costs of forming a LMG including implementation of a series of SLM activities at the village level are limited(less than US$2,000 annually).
Location: Trashigang Dzongkhag, Radhi geog, Drung Goempa Chiog, Bhutan
Initiation date: 2008
Year of termination: 2012
Type of Approach
| What stakeholders / implementing bodies were involved in the Approach? | Specify stakeholders | Describe roles of stakeholders |
| local land users/ local communities | group with local by-laws | No gender bias; women are equally participating in more physically demanding activities, such as ploughing. Yes, little. All community households are participating in the land management group, including some female headed and poorest households. |
| SLM specialists/ agricultural advisers | ||
| local government | Local government (geog and chiog level) | |
| national government (planners, decision-makers) |
Organisation chart of the Land Management Group
Decisions were taken by
Decisions were made based on
Training to community members on group formation and specific technical SLM interventions such as organic vegetable production, grass strip establishment, group private forestry, stone check dam construction, bamboo plantation etc. The annual participatory SLM action planning and natural resource mapping also contributed considerably in raising awareness of all villagers, developing their understanding of causal chain relations of their key land problems.
Labour by land users was
Soil and water conservation efforts have improved considerably with at least o.5 ha of land converted to/treated with SLM, such as grass strips, stone check dams and bamboo and tree plantation areas. A visible impact has been made as the area of grass strips and developing bench terraces are visible for the whole municipality.
The most vulnerable household are members of the group, representing the poorest families and female-headed households. Some of the hands-on trainings were carried out on the land of these households to give them first access and overcome their labour shortage constraint.
Approach has been rolled out to other communities in Trashigang Dzongkhag to scaling-up municipalities of SLMP, based on the experiences with the Drung Goenpa Land Management Group
