In view of the challenges faced for the conservation of forests and community needs of the tribals and other villagers living in the forest neighborhood, The National Forest Policy 1988 of India, envisages people’s involvement in the development and protection of the forests to meet the growing demands of fodder, firewood and timber. Based on the above policy, the Joint Forest Management Programme (JFM) has been implemented to strengthen community institutions as well as the institutions of the Forest Department(FD) of the state, for sustainable forest management that may on one hand aid to conserve forests and on the other, lead to the well being of the community by integrating natural resources at large. Even under extreme pressure, the country has heavily invested in afforestation and forest protection. Social Forestry Projects and tree plantation in non-forest areas has added 18,865 million trees to the present stock with an estimated 77% survival, averaging 19,500 trees per village (Saxena, 1995).
With the growing international concern over deforestation, the Joint Forest Management(JFM) programme, a partnership between Forest Department (FD) and Forest Communities (FC) to protect, conserve and sustainably manage forest and its produce was started as a small experiment in Arabari of West Bengal in 1972 by Dr. A. K. Banerjee (Malhotra and Deb, 1998). Initiated in India in 1990, it has now emerged as a boon in the drive to afforestation, being the country’s biggest effort till date not only in checking rapid deforestation but also increasing the forest cover.
IBRAD was assigned to study the effectiveness of Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) in the country and to assess its degree of the institutionalization of its process, and its variation at the regional level. It also aimed to analyse if JFMCs have progressed and made its mark in the socio economic map in the country, by bringing about improvement in the status of forest regeneration.
To ascertain the above, IBRAD has developed a methodology as a countrywide yardstick to weigh out the effectiveness of the mechanism and the degree of the level of functioning of the JFMCs. Once the field methods and methodology for analysis were finalized, field testing was done in five regions of the country. Five regional workshops were organised at 1. Bangalore, 2. Kolkata, 3. Raipur, 4. Delhi and 5. Jaipur where all the senior officials of the states shared their views followed by a session of advice and suggestions.
The entire country was divided into five regions namely, southern, northern, eastern, western and central. Intensive field work has been carried out in 12 states and FGDS was conducted in 3 more states. Apart from this, state level meetings have been conducted in three North Eastern States. Data has been collected from 776 JFMCs covering 57 Divisions, 150 Ranges under 37 Circles. Total 3,045 JFMC members have been interviewed.
Findings were presented first on 27th December 2004 and on 4th May 2005 at NAEB. Findings at the final presentation revealed that there has been initiation of the process of institutionalisation of JFM in the country but at a different degree with regional variation. The Eastern region of the country, West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand have shown considerable degree of institutionalisation reflecting better community participation and regeneration of forest despite minimum or no external funding, whereas southern part of the country has more of plantation, investment through externally funded project and asset creation by the community, but not much of natural forest regeneration. The Central part of the country has a mixed experience both in terms of regeneration as well as funding. The community participation in this region has also been uneven. The Northern part especially Uttaranchal has conspicuous participation of the Van Panchayat. The Western part has although a better sign of institutionalisation of JFM but not as good as that of Eastern region. The country overall has an encouraging picture of JFM in terms of the process of institutionalisation with regional variation and rich experience. The study has raised several issues for giving direction and corrective measures to sustain the programme of bio Diversity conservation through JFM.
The following issues were raised and discussed in the meeting chaired by Director General, Forests:
- There has appreciable improvement in forest status in most part of the country through JFMC in last decade. The JFM programming has not only been popular but has drawn attention of many including external funding agencies with hope and aspiration compared to any other programme related to forest in India.
- Despite the requirement as per policy and Government Order, the involvement of the functionaries of Panchyati Raj Institutions (PRI) is not up to the mark at different levels except in West Bengal. This causes confusion and conflict. A systematic study on the clarity of the role and capacity building of PRI may help in future.
- Although the code of national working plan has been circulated but there has been lot of information gap and inconsistency between the microplan prepared by the JFMC and scientific need of management of the forest as per the prescription of the working plan.
- There are many initiatives to involve the community in income generation activities (IGA) through NTFP collection and processing, but there has not been a systematic effort for orienting the field staff as well as the community to appreciate the need of sustainable livelihood. Therefore, a strategic planning for orientation through action research is needed to shift the focus from mere IGA to holistic sustainable livelihood.
- Despite the policy and Government Order the social and cultural norms an often the approaches to involve women has not empowered them in the JFMC for their active participation.
- The study has revealed that there are many forms and formats for collecting information as a part of monitoring, but the process of monitoring will become more effective, if the community is also involved through participatory method of social and biodiversity monitoring, to improve the JFM programme as a system.
- It has been seen that most of the microplan prepared under FDA project contains just facts and figures without the involvement of community as a process. Since there is no scientific method to examine the quality of microplan, to measure the degree of authenticity, it will be an important study to develop some module to standardise the process of microplanning with the specific needs of site and culture.
- While the JFM as a programme has attained a wide spread, it has been revealed that the community is still considered as one of the beneficiaries of Forest Department to help the field staff in forest protection and not as a partner of forest manager. This requires a systematic orientation for the changing roles for both communities as well as forest officials.
- While there has been a big expansion of the programme of NAEB for involvement of JFMC through FDA, the ultimate goal of FDA for convergence of several line department and shift of afforestation programme from mere plantation to participatory Natural Resource Management finds a slow pace. It has become a popular afforestation programme of NAEB without significant impact on sustainable development.
By and large, the JFM programme could be said “a success” but not all parts of the country had similar experiences. JFM in India is now in the form of a
process of institutionalization,rather than a predetermined output and a
continuum of approaches to the community-oriented forest management with different intensities. The degree of institutionalization is based on (i) the political ethos, organizational culture of the FD, (ii) cultural norm and institution of the community and (iii) access to resources. There are concerns from the stakeholders and Government to institutionalise this process. Out of such growing concerns the Ministry of Forest and Environment (MoEF) initiated this present study to know the present scenario, with the following objectives:
- To assess the degree of institutionalization of JFM and status of implementation of JFM guidelines issued from time to time.
- To assess the effectiveness of the JFM movement in the country since its inception.
- To assess improvement in the regeneration of forests due to protection and other management interventions through JFM.
- To analyze the socio-economic benefits accrued to JFMC/VFC members.
- To infer from the above four objectives, the effectiveness of JFM movement in the country.
The
Indian Institute of Bio –Social Research and Development (IBRAD), carried out a study to determine the level and mode of functioning of the JFMCs and the degree of their institutionalization, on the basis of the following factors through unification of several concepts of social science, ecological science and economics:
a) Clarity of Purpose and Role (CPR), b) Institutional Mechanism (IM), c) Capacity of the JFMCs (CJ) and d) Resource Management (RM).
Keeping the above mentioned factors in mind the
Research Questions are designed to understand the functions of the JFMC as an institution which are as follows:
- Clarify of purpose and goal for which the JFMC organisation is established.
Why has the JFMC been formed? Whether members are aware of the value of natural resource conservation?
- Cohesiveness of the group will continue if the members of JFMC consider it as a rewarding forum for them which will help the community for their survival with satisfaction.
- Institutional mechanism: clarity on roles, responsibility and regulatory processes for the members, the division of labour among its members of the JFMC to carry out the activities to achieve the purpose.
How do the members of the JFMCs perform to achieve the goal of sustainable forest management?
- Resource Management : activities to be carried out to meet the purpose of sustainable forest management.
What will be mode of functioning of the JFMC to meet the purpose?
- The communication pattern, information exchange and feedback among different members as part of an open, dynamic system.
- Empowerment and capacity building - In-built decision-making mechanism for measuring the consequences of the action by JFMC related to Natural Resource Management.
- Adaptability to interact with the external environment such as different line department and agencies for collaborative management for sustainability.
- Ecological economic activities and mechanism for sustainable harvesting, processing, value addition and marketing
- Equity and equality - availability, of resource as energy to support the organisation; allocation of it for functioning as per the roles and responsibility of constituents of the organisation and generation of surplus to meet the purpose.
Social processes for institutionalisation of JFMC as a part of different social actions and rituals which has become a part of their social behaviour where people take pride for voluntary action for the cause of forest conservation.
The research combines quantitative and qualitative tools.
Quantitative data is collected through
- Individual structured interview of the JFMC members
- Individual structured interview of the Forest Department Official and staff
- Secondary data on forest
Qualitative information is collected through
- Focus group discussion
- Case studies
- Observation method
Sampling
The states are divided into different agro climatic zones as emerged during the regional workshops. The division having the maximum concentration of JFMCs of the concerned Circle, under the agro climatic zone have been identified and the list of JFMCs which are older than two years are collected, from the Divisional Forest Officer of the concerned division. Sampling is done by applying the Systematic Random Sampling method. A minimum of seven members of each have been interviewed with at least one Executive Body member.
Descriptive Findings
Joint Forest Management (JFM) in India is an innovative initiative taken by the government to bring together forest department, authorised for protection and management of forest resources, the resource users and the community people, to a common platform for the purpose of conservation of forest resources as partners.
Though, in comparison to the total forest area (76.5 million ha) of our country in which the total degraded forest area is about 41%, JFM covers only 17.33 million ha; but considering the importance of forest resources, difficulties both of involving people for protection on the one hand and changing the attitude of the bureaucrats, towards involving people as partners of the programme on the other, the progress of JFM has been commendable (Winrock International, 2004) since the issuance of the first government order on JFM in 1989, by West Bengal government. 28 states have already issued resolutions on JFM. There are about 84,642 JFMCs engaged in protection, regeneration and management of 17.33 million ha of degraded forest land (Ravindranath & Sudha, 2004).
Degree of institutionalisation of JFM and status of implementation of JFM guidelines from time to time
Twenty-eight state governments in India have adopted JFM by issuing government orders. West Bengal is the pioneer state to issue the first government order on 12.7.89 followed by the other states, the latest one being Meghalaya. The government orders specify the structure and functions of the JFMCs towards conservation of the forest.
Reason for formation of the committee
It has been observed that in 66% and 64.3% of the JFMCs in Eastern and Western regions respectively, the two pioneer regions for initiation of the JFM programme in the country, the committees have been formed mostly because of the realisation of the members that their survival is threatened, due to scarcity of forest resource, and they need to work together for betterment of environment and their survival. 26.6% of the JFMCs in the Eastern and 21.9% of the JFMCs in the Western regions also formed the committees for getting benefits and shares for providing protection.
Women’s participation
Participation of women in JFMC activities is mostly as partners and supporters of the programme through attending general meetings, patrolling, formation of SHGs in Northern and Eastern regions, whereas, in Southern and Central regions, they are considered mostly as beneficiaries.
In Uttaranchal, women play an active role in all the functions of the JFMCs whereas in Himachal Pradesh, their role is to do informal patrolling during NTFP collection and attend meetings.
Encroachment control
It has been found that in most of the JFMCs, no new encroachment has been reported after its formation. It has also been found most of the JFMCs have taken active role in eviction of encroachment and have also taken up plantations, to control further encroachment.
Measures taken by the JFMCs to control fire
Forest fire is an important environmental problem and causes damage to the forest. It is important to know whether the JFMCs have the ability to control the fire and manage them, which will in turn reflect the future of the forest resource.
The study has revealed that JFMCs in Eastern region take initiative to control fire on their own when it occurs but do not follow the practise of prevention of fire whereas in the states of Central region JFMCs take up regular preventive measures to control fire (70% in MP, 80% in Chandrapur, Maharastra, 35% in Chattisgarh). In Northern Region, 57% of the JFMCs in Uttaranchal, 67% in Nahan in Himachal Pradesh take regular measures to prevent fire as well as take initiative to extinguish it voluntarily if it occurs. 61% of the JFMCs in Hosur in Tamil Nadu and 28% of the JFMCs in Karnataka, 81% of the JFMCs in Andhra Pradesh take preventive measures to control fire and 70% JFMCs in Surat Circle in Gujarat and 50% of the JFMCs in Rajasthan take up regular measures to prevent fire.
Competency of the JFMC members (CJ)
For the sustainability of the JFMCs the group must be competent to run the institution by itself. The group must have the vision and skill and management ability to manage their natural and physical resources and plan for future. To understand their level of competency, the role played by the members in preparation of microplans and then implementation is one of the important criteria.
Training imparted to JFMCs by FD/NGO/Other Government agencies
Most of the JFMCs received only one training conducted by Forest Department while 30% JFMCs in West Bengal, 29% in Chattisgarh, 18% in Maharashtra and 35% in Uttaranchal received training from line departments like irrigation, health. There exist a large number of JFMCs who did not receive any kind of training since their inception like 15.9% in Orissa, 37.5% in MP, 54.8% in Maharashtra, 62% in Hosur, 15% in Karnataka. None of the JFMCs in Bihar and Jharkhand received any training so far (as was found through FGD).
Value Addition
It has been found that largely, there has not been organised value addition of the products carried out by the JFMCs, as has been borne by the fact that no value addition is carried out in 45% JFMCs in WB, 49% JFMCs in Chattisgarh, 77.5% in MP, 50% in Maharastra, 69% in Karnataka, 22% in Andhra Pradesh, 92% in Uttaranchal and Gujarat. Value addition of some NTFPs like amla, mushroom etc. has been done at an individual level only and not through organised effort. Only in Hosur in Tamil Nadu, this has been done through SHGs in 38% JFMCs.
Voluntary activity
Voluntary activities done collectively by the villagers for improvement of the village/forest are rarely practised in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Voluntary activities collectively done by the JFMC members are often practised even for more than one time in West Bengal (46% cases), Orissa (49.4%), Jharkhand (18.2%), MP and Chattisgarh (52%) and Andhra Pradesh (46%).
Resource Management (RM) - Sources of Fund
The Forest Department was the major source of fund in the past and it is also so in the present, in Eastern and Central Regions. In the Northern Region though, the Forest Department was the major source of funding in the past but 25% of the funding was from external sources and at present mostly, the fund still comes from the same and also income generation activities. In Southern Region, 44% of the funding was from Forest Department and 34% was from external sources and in the present time, 29% is from the same department and 29% is from external sources. In Western region in the past, 76.4% was from self-funding and at present, 49.3% is through self-funding and 30% from the Forest Department.
Degree of Institutionalization - Institutional Mechanism for the JFMCs (IM)
Institutional Mechanisms in JFM that specify rules, regulation, norms and practices related to access, use, and control of forest resources and also about the decision making process, has been studied to understand the process of institutionalization. Locally devised access and management rules and control mechanism, in the form of social norms are the backbone of any institution. Appropriate changes in values, beliefs, roles, responsibilities, rules and regulations are needed to develop the JFMC as an institution.
It has been found that most of the JFMCs surveyed have developed mechanism for taking action against the offenders where illicit felling and in some cases, free grazing are considered as the offence. The decision is taken mostly by the JFMC and the Forest Department. JFMCs follow the system of warning the offenders, handing over the offender to the forest department and also imposing monetary fine.Thus it is important to understand the activities that are being performed by the JFMC members, to reach the goal of forest conservation. This reflects the level of commitment of the members of the JFMC, towards the purpose for formation of the committee and the perceived benefits out of it.
Twenty-eight state governments in India have adopted JFM by issuing government orders. West Bengal is the pioneer state to issue the first government order on JFM on 12.7.89 followed by the other states, the latest one being Meghalaya. The government orders specify the structure and functions of the JFMCs towards conservation of the forest. As JFM is a new management, options adopted by the government to involve the people as partners in protection and management, is still passing through the stage of experimentation and evolution. Most of the state governments have modified their government orders from time to time, based on hurdles faced during its implementation. Different state governments has evolved different operational models focussed on the issues based on the ecological vulnerability, socio political and economic dimensions of the state.
Regional variation - Formation of JFMCs
There exists a regional variation in terms of formation of the JFMCs. Nearly all the JFMCs of the Northern, Southern and Central India excepting Chattisgarh are being formed by the Forest Department whereas in West Bengal and Orissa in the Eastern region, and in Gujarat in Western region, more than 30% of the JFMCs have been formed through community initiatives.
It may also be noted that in those regions, where fund has been provided at the time of initiation of the committees, the majority of the JFMCs have stated that the major reason behind the formation of the committee is to get benefits and shares, for providing protection to forest.
It is also interesting to note that nearly 50% of the forest officials and staff of the states of Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal, where most of the JFMCs have been initiated without providing any fund at the time of initiation, opined that committees cannot be formed without fund. As the sample size for the forest staff is low, other parameters like age of the staff, their level of exposure to JFM programme have also not been taken into account. Therefore, this may not be the true representation.
