INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES,
ENGINEERING & PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES

Sovan Chattopadhyay

Department of Geography, Sarada Ma Girls’ College

Among all the natural resources forest resource is a significant one that have various contribution to the rural livelihood. Forest is not only the source of timber products but also various non timber forest products (NTFP) as well as NRG or natural resins and gum products. Balasore District of Orissa has 9.99% of forest cover in respect of its total geographical area (ISFR,2015).The hilly blocks like Nilagiri, Oupada, Khaira and among other blocks Jaleswar has significant forest coverage. These blocks cover major percentage of the forest cover of the district. These forests are significant source of timber, non timber as well as natural gum and resin products. The sal leaf is the most used non timber forest product in the hilly blocks for making sal leaf plates, bowls etc. Except this almost 81 km long coast line also a large source of coastal forest products. The monsoonal rainfall variation and other climatic problems, insufficiency of irrigation development and function drops agricultural production as well as the income generation. The forest products play a good role to ensure supportive income to enhance the standard of living. In this paper an attempt has been taken to flourish the available forest non timber forest products, associated economy and related livelihood generation as an aspect of rural development.