Abstract

Forest sector analysis was carried out under two frameworks, one purely in economic terms as measured by the Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) and the other based on the concepts of sustainable management of forests. Although all the sectors exhibited a higher growth rate after 1987, the service sector had the maximum boost. Within the primary sector, the performance of forest sector was comparable to that of allied sectors like agriculture and fisheries in terms of growth rate. During 1960's, wood production was much high due to large scale conversion of natural forests to plantations as part of Five Year Plans. A more quantitative analysis carried out on NSDP of forest sector using ARIMA model indicated an increasing trend for production from forest sector in the immediate future. Analysis based on partial correlation of NSDP of forestry sector with similar values of all other sub-sectors revealed that production from forests has been proceeding more or less independently of other sectors. It was also revealed that the contribution of forest sector to the State income was to the order of 1 to 2 percent showing the inadequacy of NSDP in evaluating the sector performance. Cattle-grazing in forests is completely banned since 1993. There has been reduction in the number of forest-related offences as well. Production from forests has been increasing during the period but still within allowable limits. The survey on forest-based industries was directed to ecotourism and sawmilling. The tourism traffic to Kerala depicts an increasing trend over the years. The domestic tourists constitute on an average 95 percent of the total tourist flow during the period 1980-2002 and the foreign tourists constitute the rest 5 percent. The average number of domestic tourists to Kerala during the period 1980 to 2003 is 2, 201, 960 per year and the year 2003 records the highest number of domestic tourist flow with 5, 871, 228 visitors. Annual increase of foreign tourists' arrival to Kerala during the given period is11, 047. The sawmilling units are spread over the entire State except those parts having larger area under forest. Of the total number of 2214 registered units, 93 percent of the sawmills are small-sized employing less than 10 workers. About 85 percent of the total outturn is claimed by the small units. The capacity utilization of the small units is 65 percent and that of large units is estimated as 86 percent. The major sources of the timber used in furniture- making and timber sales are homesteads (5