Joint Management of Forests - Some Successful Collaborations

It is well known that the biotic pressure on forests has become intense over the last few years.  Considering the limited resources at their command, the forest departments of the states, which manage nearly one-quarter of India’s land area, have sought to involve the local communities in looking after them in the states of West Bengal, Haryana, Gujarat, Orissa and Jammu & Kashmir.  Here are three sketch of those that have helped to check the rapid destruction of forests. 

Tribal Communities & Forest Management in West Bengal 

Social forestry in West Bengal has become a major element in the state forest department’s management programme over he past 15 years.  The orientation represents a shift away from the earlier reliance on custodial policing and forester controlled timber production system to collaborative management with local communities.  The transition the agency is now making was based on the recognition that only through management based on a system responsive to Bengal’s large and expanding population, could future of the state’s shrinking forest lands be insured.  With 55 million people in 1981, West Bengal has the highest population density of any state in India and the lowest per capita forest area (.02 hectares per person).  Prior to the initiation of the social forestry programme, rural needs for fuelwood and non-wood forest products were resulting in uncontrolled exploitation which threatened the existence of the remaining forest of the state.  Policing attempts to control the misuse of forest resources were proving ineffective in protecting trees, but were increasingly causing conflict and mistrust between foresters and rural communities.

Efforts to involve communities in the protection of degraded public forest land have focused on the low fertility tracks of south-western Bengal.  The dominant species in the lateritic zone is sal (shorea robusta), a tree common to much of the semi-arid forest tracts in eastern India and the Himalayan foothills.  A pilot project carried out in the Arabari range in the 1970s demonstrated that if the villagers prevented an excessive removal of fuelwood from the natural sal forests, the trees would rapidly regenerate because of their hardy root stock.  In return for protecting them, the forest department agreed to give the villagers 25 percent of all the revenues generated from the sale of firewood and timber. 

The Arabari experience indicated that even degraded natural sal forests would quickly send up shoots or coppice, if the root stock was healthy, and the tree was protected.  While many shoots would emerge from the stump, if they were cut off (multiple shoot cutting-MSC), leaving only one to two, these would develop into commercially valuable poles within 10 years.  If sal root systems were well established, the forest did not require large expenditure for replanting, greatly reducing management cost.  Forest related income earning opportunities were created to compensate poor rural families for income lost once the forest had been closed.  Returns on the investment were impressive.  In Arabari, Rs. 1,00,000 was spent on forest related activities during the 14 years the project was monitored, while the value of the timber and fuelwood rose from virtually nothing to Rs. 12,600,000 in 1986.  Through this process job opportunities were created, forester-villager relations improved, the natural forest recovered rapidly, while forest department revenues increased.
 

Gujarat Forest Protection Committees

Historically, disagreements between the forest department and rural communities over forest access have led to conflicts.  Each year an average of 18,000 forest offences are recorded, including timber thefts (10,000), grazing (2,000), fire (700) and others (5,300).  Clashes between individuals and foresters are at times replaced by broad-based conflicts between communities and foresters or group of offenders and foresters.  These situations make effective protection by the forest department virtually impossible.  In response to growing conflicts between the forest department and rural communities, in the late 1980s an experiment in joint management was initiated in the southern circle by the Conservator, Mr. R.S. Pathan.

Between 1981-83 R.S. Pathan worked in the Vyara forests of Surat district.  The tribal of the region are relatively better educated and politically active.  The forest labourers co-operatives working on the harvest of forest coupes had a sizeable following.  The 20,000 tribal members of co-operatives residing throughout the forest areas of Surat district assisted in managing the forest.

He objective of the forest labourers co-operative system was to organise the forest labourers to abolish the control of contractors and exploitation of tribals.  The programme, unfortunately, did not include any joint management arrangement to enable the co-operatives to have better access to, and greater management control over, forest resources falling in their territory.  The issue of forest protection in 1981 in Surat district was not smooth.  Members actively engaged in logging were faced with loss of employment.  Yet, the forest labourers co-operative societies were persuaded to take up the task of forest protection.

Twenty-two forest protection committees were formed.  These took up the responsibility of patrolling the forest with the field forestry officials.  There was no incentive provided to the committees except some money as reward to those which seized the pilfered material from the forests.  The system helped by greatly reducing the number of local people involved the destruction of the forest.

Gradually a strategy evolved with the following priorities: To awaken the leaders to the environmental problems, to reach the communities through their leaders, to reduce the gap between the staff and the people, to get the communities involved in protection and isolate the gangs, and bring criminal charges against the contractors that supported the gangs.

By and large this strategy produced results.
 

The Shivalik Hills (Haryana/Sukhomajri) Experiment  

In the mid-1970s the Ford Foundation collaborated with the Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute (CSWCRTI) in Chandigarh in the study of process of erosion in the Shivaliks of Haryana to determine methods for slowing it.  The integrated underway evolved form this early work.

The programme was originally designed to prevent the rapid sedimentation of Sukhna Lake in Chandigarh city.  P.R. Mishra, then head of the CSWCRTI, pleaded with the villagers of Sukhomajri to stop grazing and foraging in the watershed above the lake.

The Gujar herding community of Sukhomajri was heavily dependent upon the land for fodder and fuel.  Mr. Mishra and the villagers agreed that if the CSWCRTI would build a dam to supply the community with irrigation water, the villagers would stop grazing their animals on the watershed.  This approach to social fencing gained the early pilot project widespread attention from development planers, researchers and practitioners throughout India.

The pilot project activities were extend into the neighbouring villages of Nada, Dhamalla, Jatimajri and a few others by CSWCRTI staff and a Foundation supported constancy support team.  However, by the early eighties the Haryana forest department grew increasingly involved in the programme, and became the lead implementing agency in building dams, providing communities with grass leases, and helping to organize management societies.

The sedimentation process of Sukha Lake showed down considerably.    q
 

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