Tribals of Coimbatore for the first time accorded individual and community forest rights

All thanks to the efforts of former DC of Coimbatore, GS Sameeran who tried to tackle it with technology

Mordern Tech like GPS based land survey was adopted to map the forest areas

Firstly, tribals were taught to map the forest through GPS instruments

The trained tribesmen along with the eldest of each settlement covered dense forest on foot to show the traditional collection points

It was found that 13 tribal settlements can collect minor forest produce without paying the nominal fee they used to pay before

This happened as two clusters –Pilloor and Palamalai agreed to share their areas and hence were given CFR