Conserving biodiversity of community forests and rangelands of a hot arid region of India.

Abstract: Community forests/rangelands, called Orans and Gauchars in the western arid part of India, constitute a significant proportion of the total geographical area of the region. Given the economic importance of these areas from time immemorial, the local people took special care to protect and sustainably utilize these common property resources. However, these forests and rangelands have suffered severe degradation in the recent past. Rehabilitation of Orans and Gauchars needs proper planning and execution of a technically feasible package, tailored to suit their unique edaphic, climatic, vegetation, social and legal status. Keeping in view the vast potential of these areas to sustain large scale livestock farming for overall economic upliftment of the local population, there is an urgent need to rehabilitate these degraded areas in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Salient problems faced by these natural assets of western Rajasthan and strategies for their rehabilitation have been discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]