Network Past Issues

Not out of the woods yet
Although well-intended and optimistic the Joint Forest Management movement needs to be tapped well

Even as the world celebrated the International Day of Forests in March, the forests of Telengana and Andhra Pradesh were keeling under anthropogenic distress. While forests were traditionally administered via top-down interventions the need for a collective, participatory approach was sensed way back in the 80s. This led to the launch of the National Forest Policy (NFP) in 1988. The NFP identified a clear need to associate tribal and village communities with restoring degraded forests. Another significant step towards a progressive p e o p l e - c e n t r i c approach involved establishing the Joint Forest Management (JFM) by the Government of India in 1990. The JFM was envisioned as a collaborative effort between village communities and the forest department. Adopted enthusiastically by state governments, the JFM succeeded in getting 1.13 lakh forest protection committees (FPCs) to manage nearly 24.65 million hectares of forest land constituting a little over a third of the country’s total forest area by 2010. The FPCs are unique in that they are spread out mainly along forest-fringed villages inhabited by disadvantaged groups including the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes.

The JFM called upon state forest departments to seek people’s participation in the protection of degraded forests. It made clear that the community members were not to be given any ownership over forests. They were, however, entitled to a share of usufructory benefits, including the right to collect various non-timber forest products. They were also given a share in the final harvest of protected areas. Tree species aligned with local community preferences were to be included in the regeneration plan.

How far has the JFM succeeded then? The reactions are mixed. Those who view the policy through an optimistic lens aver that it has succeeded in breaking state-centric legacies that had, hitherto, alienated local communities. It is thanks to JFM’s efforts, they contend, that the forest department has been goaded into redefining its role and relations with the community. Barring some initial hiccups, the JFM has succeeding in propagating its message and raison d’être aided by the forest department. The Twelfth Five Year Plan credited multi-stakeholder platforms like the JFM for having empowered women and for having introduced innovations in the management of natural resources. As a policy, JFM has been hailed for its changeengendering potential leading to the reversal of injustices meted out to disadvantaged communities in the past.

The pessimists beg to differ, however, by contending that JFM has been more a reactive policy and its success limited. According to them, the JFM has to be more proactive while addressing the institutional dimensions of devolution, equity, and sustainability lest it lose out on the limited gains it has made. Those with a political ecology perspective attribute JFM’s variable performance to the largely ambivalent stand taken up by the state forest departments. Many foresters see JFM as a betrayal of the latter’s historic mission of protecting forests. Then there are those who claim that stateled interventions are unlikely to succeed with the state’s non neutral stance in a capitalistic economy known for advancing capitalistic interests over those of the poor and underprivileged. Given the preeminence of the state, the customary and informal rights of communities may not always have tenability, which reduces JFM to the status of a mere user-group based intervention.

The JFM has also been criticised for lagging in terms of inclusivity. In its initial phases, it was seen as highly insensitive to the role women could play in effecting change with no explicit provisions made for their participation. Growing pressures from various groups forced the inclusion of women, both in the general body and executive committees of FPCs. While some states did attempt to organize exclusive women-based FPCs huge variations continue to mar inclusivity, specific state-laid norms for women membership notwithstanding.

The main bête noir, however, is the perpetuation of the top-down approach exercised by the forest departments, which is in sheer defiance of the JFM rationale. The forest-department officials hold ex-officio positions with extensive powers giving them dominance in their working. The relationship between the forest department and the community has been perceived as vertical with the forest officials calling the shots in all the major FPC related activities.

A Planning Commission’s Working Group in 2011 affirmed the high degree of control exercised by the forest departments over FPCs causing divergence between the interests of the FD and the community. The abiding top-down attitude of the FD, inadequate devolution of powers, lack of transparency in the working, social backwardness of the communities, and low capacity building of the FPC members are some of the reasons behind perpetuating the control.

The results are there for all to see. While the people’s participation has been completely undermined the communities have been reduced to mere wage seekers and beneficiaries as opposed to empowered stakeholders. Women are unable to participate and exercise any control. In some cases, women simply serve as conduits with regard to decisions imposed by forest department officials. Community based microplans remain a pipe dream.

While the JFM has been in existence for over a decade, it has been unable to come up with significant, farreaching results. The proportion of forest cover, which was 19.5 percent in 1987, increased only marginally to 19.9 per cent in 2001. Constrained and shackled the JFM has not made much headway obviously.

Lately, however, there have some improvements in the country’s forest cover. The total forest cover, according to the India State of Forest Report, went up to 21.03 percent in 2013- a trend attributed to protectionist efforts. Overall, JFM efforts have modest at best at the macro level. M i c r o - l e v e l assessments, on the other hand, depict diverse scenarios of forest regeneration with a limited overall impact. An all-India study on NAP, for instance, shows the survival rate of plantations as ranging from 68 to 82 percent across different zones. Another micro study in Haryana reveals the people’s involvement in protection having led to a significant increase in tree density from 13 to 810 per hectares stimulating an amplified green cover, reduced soil erosion, and improved water conservation. Diminished illicit felling, curtailed grazing, reduced forest-related offences, and appearance of wild life are some of the proxy indicators of forest regeneration identified by many micro studies.

Failing (mostly) at the macro level, the little islands of success point to potential capable of being tapped. All said and done, there is no better alternative to involving the community in forest conservation. The JFM experience may be strengthened by: (i) deepening its participatory framework while ensuring legal back-up to FPCs for them to emerge as empowered institutions, (ii) ensuring autonomy both in the JFM institutional design and planning processes so that focus is on the local livelihood needs of the community, (iii) allowing the FPCs to continue either as user-based or wider communitybased institutions tailored to local needs resolved through democratic processes involving the Panchayats, and (iv) mobilizing larger resources for forest conservation through the convergence of interventions.

By HS Shylendra, email: hss@irma.ac.in