Volume 21, Number 1 Article by Kulbhushan Balooni and Makoto Inoue March, 2009
Joint Forest Management in India: The Management Change Process :
From the 1970s, India has had a participatory approach to forest management and the Indian Joint Forest Management (JFM) model is considered an ideal forest management model in the present world forestry scenario. The JFM model is based on 'co-management' and a 'give and take' relationship between the village communities and the forest department. It marks a total departure from the earlier forest policies practised in India, wherein the forest department managed forests primarily to generate the maximum possible revenue for the State, while excluding village communities and the grass roots from the management process. However, the management change that has brought people-oriented forest policies to the fore is neither new nor sudden. It is the outcome of several factors including the inability of the forest department to prevent the degradation of forest resources as well as the policy failure to accommodate and account for traditional forest use patterns.
This article addresses the processes and circumstances that led to the evolution of JFM in India as well as the forest polices that facilitated this change. It reviews and analyses the emerging policy issues confronting joint forest management. In doing so,it describes the learning curve achieved in the development of JFM in India, which has ushered in a management change in the Indian forestry sector. While India's forest policy making process has matured,the implementation and expansion of JFM throughout the country has raised several issues such as equity in participation and benefit sharing,the institutional impediments that are responsible for the high transaction costs,and the availability of institutional finance for JFM. If these problems are not addressed now, they could jeopardise the future progress of this programme.
Reprint No 09101
