Joint Forest Management at a Crossroads: Which Direction Now?
Summary
Joint Forest Management at a Crossroads: Which Direction Now? A study of the impact and Future relevance of JFM in India from experiences in Haryana - Fatema Baheranwala
In 2002, WOCAT[1] documented a successful approach of sustainable land management in the village of Thaska in the state of Haryana, India. This approach was known as joint forest management (JFM). Joint forest management was invented thirty years ago in India as a participatory approach in sustainable forest management with incentives for the participating local communities that supported their livelihoods.
This research aimed to follow up on the 2002 WOCAT study and investigate the current state of joint forest management in India and its implications on supporting livelihoods and combating climate change by evaluating the program across three villages of Haryana. This was done by evaluating the JFM program across the villages of Sukhomajri, Bargodam, and Thaska in the hilly Shivalik region of Haryana. A framework was developed to evaluate the JFM program in these villages by analyzing existing frameworks for forest management in juxtaposition with literature that identified distinct criteria for success of forest management programs globally. Primary and secondary data was gathered by conducting a literature review on the subject supplemented by a field study to interview relevant stakeholders at the national, state and village level. Information collected was analyzed based on the framework developed for this study.
The results of the field study and literature review revealed that JFM is at a crossroads today. Although JFM has several accomplishments to boast off, critics are considering it an outdated concept today that has lost its innovativeness. JFM’s accomplishments include its involvement of local communities in managing common pool resources, which consequently also improved the relationship between the forest department and the local communities; the provision of several direct and indirect incentives that boosted incomes and generated employment; and the improvement of the condition of managed forests. JFM restored vegetation in degraded forests and greatly reduced soil erosion. It also had a tangible impact on forest tenure rights for local communities. Yet, one of its most significant impacts was the institutional set up that established a local level platform for people to come together and manage common resources.
JFM originated simultaneously in two villages across the country in mid 1970s, a forest management project in Arabari, West Bengal and as a soil and water conservation project in Sukhomajri, Haryana. The success of these projects led to the scaling up at the national level and JFM was incorporated into the national forest policy in 1990. Concurrently the Sukhomajri project was scaled up nationally to the Integrated Watershed Development Program (IWDP). During its peak in the mid 2000s, JFM spread across the entire country and had 106,482 communities managing 22 million ha of forests across all twenty eight states.
However, the program stagnated in the latter half of last decade and is now being questioned for its effectiveness. This is because JFM was not voluntary at the local level. In several areas, the program was implemented in a very top-down manner where it was treated as a project driven approach with targets to meet rather than a concept or a program that evolved over time. Despite the efforts of the forest department and NGOs, women and minorities continued to be marginalized and their participation remained passive. In addition, various programs set up parallel institutions for resource management with overlapping goals and functions with JFM. This led to less attention being paid to the existing institutions as well as the inefficient utilization of resources. However, one of the most significant limitations was the barrier in market access and lack of value addition for NTFPs that inhibited incomes for local communities.
Presently it faces several challenges at the national and the local level. The onset of the Forest Rights Act in 2006 caused several conflicts across the nation and led to subsequent halting of JFM activities at the national level. Since then funding dried up for JFM, which hampered JFM activities throughout the country. The recent trend of economic growth and prosperity across India changed people’s aspirations and priorities. Furthermore, the economic incentives that greatly boosted livelihoods two decades back remained constant and consequently people lost interest and motivation to participate in the program. However, these challenges also present several opportunities for the program to move forward and evolve.
Globally, over the last thirty years the attention for environmental concerns shifted from soil and water to carbon and climate. There was an increased global focus on forests and their ability to adapt to and mitigate climate change. Global programs such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol and Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) slowly continued to gained momentum. For the successful implementation of these programs robust local level institutions and clear ownership and management rights to forests were essential. These were also two fundamental aspects of the JFM program. Thus, it became pertinent to understand and analyze JFM in terms of its effectiveness and its potential to serve as a base for implementing programs such as CDM and REDD+. The study showed that the potential to link JFM with global carbon based funding programs such as CDM and REDD+ exists.
The research revealed that while the current state of JFM is one of stagnation the primary goal of joint forest management is to ensure the sustainable use of forests to meet the needs of the local people in an equitable manner, which remains relevant today. Recommendations to confront the current issues are included in the report and three options are presented to move forward. The first is to reform the current JFM policy and make it more flexible and adaptive while sorting out issues with the Forest Rights Act of 2006. The second is to merge the various programs and projects at the regional and national level with JFM thus ensuring that resources are utilized in an efficient manner. The third is to use the JFM committees as the implementation agencies for global climate change programs such as CDM and REDD. Joint forest management is a social approach and thus its future lies in the hands of its stakeholders, that is, the local communities, the forest department and relevant NGOs and thus depends on their motivation and commitment to protect and conserve their forests.
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1] World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies
