Working Papers

Protected Areas (PAs) consist of national parks and sanctuaries created for wild life and bio-diversity conservation. The management of PAs is fully under the forest department of the government in India. There have been efforts in the direction of promoting joint forest management (JFM) for areas like government wastelands. But this does not apply to the PA management. Development of local people and their participation does not find a place in PA management in the country. The paper has three major parts. First, it discusses the concept of PA management and joint forest management. Secondly, it examines the existing organisational structure of the Gir PA in Gujarat. Finally, it suggests a participatory organisational structure for PA management. This paper dwells upon the issue of PA management in the light of the current thinking on the subject. It focuses on the analysis of the management of the Gir PA. The government approach in this case is found to be top-down, bureaucratic and non-participatory. It is averred that there is a need for organisational reorientation of the PA management. A four-tier integrated organisational structure is suggested to make the management of Gir PA people-oriented, transparent, more efficient and effective in nature. In fact, this would apply to all the PAs in the country, in and around which people reside. This would facilitate both PA conservation and development of the local people. Thus, this would mark a paradigm shift from the prevailing `protection` approach to that of sustainable PA management. It is noted that the larger challenge is to restructure and reorient the whole administrative and management set-up (not merely the PA management) of the government to make it people-centred in the country.