Joint Forest Management

Forest land tenures in India has remained diverse, plural with multiple legal and customary regimes and reflects a continuum of rights while manifesting state, community and individual ownership. Forest tenure arrangements and practices have undergone major changes starting from the initiation of notification as Reserve or Protected Forest under the Indian Forest Act 1927, community participation in forest conservation under JFM approach, PESA, and recently settlement of Individual/ community rights and community forest resources under the Forest Rights Act. This paper provides an overview of forest tenure, drawing from global discourses and analyze the historical as well as recent transitions around forest governance, in the context of forest tenures in India. While doing so, it also discusses implications on sustainable forest management and make specific recommendations.

Joint Forest Management(JFM) originated in West Bengal in 1980's in India. JFM is the official and popular term in India for partnerships in forest movement involving both the state forest departments and local communities This paper is an attempt to critically survey the movement for Joint Forest Management(JFM) at Arabari, West Bengal. The study commences with a description of the policy context in which Joint Forest Management got initiated at Arabari. It considers the 1980s to have effected a paradigm shift in India's forest policy and legislations. The passage of the Forest Conservation Act in 1980 was followed by a host of measures to unleash a forest conservation movement in India based on local community support. The National Forest Policy of 1988 marked the first effort to set the pace for community participation in forest management. In June 1990, the Government of India issued a circular to give effect to the provisions of the National Forest Policy 1988 in this regard. Joint Forest Management was thus born in India. The background of Arabari ,and the steps taken by that time which leads to a miracle and the current status also discussed in this paper.

Introduction Generally, forest villages are found both in the interior and fringe areas with dense and fairly dense forest cover. The forest is not only a source of income to the villagers but it also provides employment to the local inhabitants which make forest an important contributor to the rural economy in the area. The villagers collect a variety of NTFPs (edible fruits, flowers, tubers, roots, and leaves), medicinal plants, firewood for both cooking and selling in the market, wood for traditional agricultural implements, house construction, and fencing, fodder (grass and leave) for livestock and space for livestock grazing for livelihood. Therefore, with such different uses and extensive dependence pattern, over-exploitation and unsustainable harvest practice degrade the forest cover rapidly over the years. To mitigate these problems, a decentralized and participatory forest management program called joint forest management (JFM) is being promoted in India since

The 'forest landscape restoration' (FLR) approach seems to be the latest international favourite in forest improvement and climate change mitigation strategies. The significant feature of FLR is the multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral, and community-based approach, taking care of both physical-technical and social-equity concerns. However, there have been previous examples of such an integrated, holistic, approach in forestry, such as social forestry and joint forest management (JFM), and the landscape approach has been explicitly incorporated in the recent Green India Mission (GIM) of 2010. The paper traces the changes in forest policy, the experience of social forestry and JFM in the Western Ghats Forestry Project, and suggests ways to reconcile the physical output-oriented approach ofthe implementing department with the bottom-up, process approach of FLR.

This paper attempts to verify whether the present forest management policies have ensured biodiversity
conservation and in turn livelihood protection for the forest dependent people. For this purpose a household survey
was conducted in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, India and various socio-economic determinants of livelihood
dependence on forests have been identified using simple OLS regression. LOGIT regression, both regular and
ordered, are applied to assess the marginal influences of different ‘cause factors’ on enhancing the probability of
conservation of traditional knowledge within the forest community. Results strongly suggested a cultural transition
among the local people who were once used to self-sustained forest dependent livelihood, but due to forest
degradation and non-availability of necessary resources/ services were gradually exposed to the outer world and
enhanced participation in general economic development related activities. The economic use of forest dominates
the newly afforested areas as against the concern for protecting their biodiversity leading to comprehensive
ecological balance.

This article examines the concept of ‘jointness’ in India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, understood as an engagement between the state (in this case the Forest Department) and people organized into ‘communities’, with NGOs, where available, acting as the interface. By examining the commonalities between older examples of joint or co-management of resources and current practices of joint forest management, the article challenges the notion that ‘jointness’ is a new feature of forest policy, or that it represents a resurgence of civil society against the state. Further, insofar as the basic agenda of the programme is pre-determined, it cannot be considered very participatory in nature. None the less, within the limited degree of choice that JFM allows, there is a new and joint construction of needs.

""This paper was a response to ‘Deconstructing the Harda Experience: Limits of Bureaucratic Participation’, (Economic and Political Weekly, November 26, 2005) by Prof. Bhaskar Vira of the Cambridge University. 

My paper critiques the post-modern approach that Prof. Vira employs in the paper for his diagnosis of conflicts around forestland and forests in Central India, and more generally in an international research project called the "Cambirdge Harda Project" <http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/harda/>. The critique traces the history of conflicts in question, and offers a brief survey of the rich social science literature on India's forest questions. The paper thus points to the fundamental reasons rooted in power asymmetries between the forest department and the forest dwelling adivasis (tribals).

Even though a significant body of literature on India's forest governance has carefully problematized the rather simplistic dichotomies of 'the state' pitted against 'the society', I am continuing to dig into this literature to understand what this problematization says about the question of intra-community (in)equity, and state society relations when looked from that vantage point. This is an ongoing work and I have only worked out initial outline of an argument. ""

A key issue that needs to be resolved when
establishing a community forest, is how the
costs and benefits will be distributed. This
paper reports on the use of the 4Rs tool to
facilitate decision-making about management
and benefit-sharing in the Bimbia
Bonadikombo forest, Southwest Cameroon.
The 4Rs tool allows for the analysis of the
rights and responsibilities held by each
stakeholder group, as well as the revenues (or
benefits) they receive from the forest. This
enables stakeholders to understand the links
between these, analyse stakeholders’ interests
more objectively and hence make more
equitable decisions on benefit sharing. In
addition, it analyses the relationships between
the different stakeholders, providing useful
information about possible entry points for
negotiation of difficult issues. In the Bimbia
Bonadikombo case, a particularly welcome
outcome of the process was a recognition by
the Operations Committee of the planned
community forest that they were responsible
for negotiating on behalf of the whole
community rather than according to their own
personal views.

Abstract. New institutional economists have argued that there are many categories of institutions, including market and non-market institutions, which may prove economically efficient, specifically for public goods and common pool goods. The Government of India ...

Traces the changes in forest policy in India, from the colonial era to the present. Under the latest (1988) forest policy, greater weight is given to people's needs and ecological interests, and accordingly the forest department has also undertaken certain organizational changes, and needs to do some more to adapt to the changed situation. Rather than a massive expansion, a better response would be to use more intelligent systems of planning, implementation, and monitoring with the people.

In Pakistan, the traditional hierarchal governance of forest resources performed well as long as the large forest resources were available, however, after independence the population increased rapidly and consequently their demands of timber, fuelwood, grazing and other products and services increased too. It was felt that the any conservation measure without the people’s involvement will be in vain. Looking at the experiences and lessons learnt from the neighbouring countries like Nepal and India, the concept of Joint Forest Management was introduced in the province of KP. However, JFM-a type of co-governance-also did not perform upto the expectations despite of the fact that the main objective of JFM was to conserve the forest resource. Forest depletion is at constant rise even after the implementation of JFM model. One of the major underlying causes is the poor forest governance. This necessitates the fact to analyze the existing governance mechanism; compare it with the ideal forest governance; find out the governance issues and its underlying causes; and recommend a framework for governance reforms in JFM. With these stated objectives, the current study was designed to cover the Allai valley Guzara Forest where JFM is in place since 2004. The study resulted in key findings in relation to forest governance which will be helpful not only to the concerned authorities but also to academia, NGOs and general public. Get the full articles at: http://www.innspub.net/volume-3-number-9-september-2013-2/

A fierce land-use dispute evolved over the temperate rainforests of the Haida Gwaii Islands in British Columbia, Canada, in 1974. Indigenous and environmental protests, illegal road blockades, campaigning, negotiations, public hearings, and a fierce stand of the Haida First Nation led to the establishment of a National Park Reserve in 1988 and the co-managed Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site in 1993.

To draw lessons for informing strategies for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and fostering conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+), this study assessed community members' perceptions of the quality of forest governance in the joint forest management program relative to the ideal forest governance quality using the Katanino Joint Forest Management study area in Zambia. The study focused on six elements of good governance, na mely participation, transparency, accountability, equity, efficiency and effectiveness. Using a two stage sampling procedure, data for this study was collected using questionnaires administered to 120 randomly selected community members who participated in the Joint Forest Management program in Serenje, Biwa and Bwengo villages of Katanino Joint Forest Management pilot area. Results showed considerable gaps between ideal quality of forest governance and the perceived quality of forest governance. One sample t-test results showed that the perceived quality of all the six governance elements were statistically different from the ideal quality of forest governance at the 95 % confidence interval, participation (t (119) =-76, ρ < 0.05), transparency (t (119) =-130, ρ < 0.05), accountability (t (119) =-82, ρ < 0.05), equity (t (119) =-53.47, ρ < 0.05), effectiveness (t (119) =-60, ρ < 0.05), efficiency (t (119) =-87, ρ < 0.05). Implications of these findings are highlighted through a governance lens to inform strategies for REDD+ implementation.

Rural communities in the developing world depend heavily on natural resources. Ability of these communities to safeguard the resource would depend on their resilience which is nothing but their intentional action to build collective capacities of its citizens to face changes as well as developing community capitals to cope with a dynamic and changing environment. One of these is social capital which is tendency for mutually beneficial collective action that different communities possess to different extents. It is being considered an important development tool as it helps communities plan, coordinate and successfully manage their resources. But, what are the factors that help build and sustain this capital in communities in order to enable them to be resilient? This paper explores the change in social capital and thus their ability to be resilient in two forest-dependent communities from Gadchiroli and Chnadrapur districts of Vidarbha region in Maharashtra State. Data was collected over two points of time, spanning five years through IFRI protocol and household survey. Multi-Criteria Analysis was used for analysis of data.The case studies bring out the fact that despite a long history of exclusion from ownership and management of forests in India, there are communities can be resilient and social capital plays an important role in bringing the resilience in them. However, resilience is not a fixed quality within a community. Rather, it is a quality that can be developed and strengthened over time. Identifying and reviving the stock of social capital, and incorporating these in the Joint Forest Management institution will help in building forces of resilience and collective effort in traditional communities. For non-traditional communities that are struggling to maintain it need positive intervention and inputs from external agencies (like the forest department or local NGOs), as external agencies can play an important role by helping communities in utilizing the stock of social capital productively with positive returns.

In this book chapter, which was first presented by me in a seminar gave an overview of the global anthropological knowledge on hunter-gatherers.Then  I  made an attempt to use this knowledge in joint forest management, which became famous in India and West Bengal during the 1980s.