Forests Management and People’s participation

For the first time in policy level communities’ role in forest management got a place in National Forest Policy, 1988. Taking the scope, to involve the communities Govt of Orissa planed for Joint Forest Management and brought the first resolution in the same year. Afterwards extending the scope Govt again passed resolutions in 1990, 1993 and in 1996. Recently, on 22nd Oct, 2008 the Govt of Orissa brought one more resolution called “JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT RESOLUTION, 2008”.
In the resolution passed in 1988, the scope was limited to Reserve forest, whereas in 1990’s resolution, the scope extended to the protected areas. Due to various reasons the 1990’s resolution could not bring in the desired impact in generating people’s participation in protection of forest. The term equal partnership in between forest department and villagers of the adjacent villages responsible for regeneration and restorations of degraded forest emerged in 1993 and the concept of VSS was introduced. In this resolution Govt acknowledged that a large number of villages have been protecting forest on their own prior to 1950s. In 1996’s resolution, it is mentioned that on account of uncertain tenure of the villagers on forests in general and forest produce in particular, satisfactory progress has not been achieved towards protection of forest and rehabilitation of degraded forests . This resolution created a scope for the declaration of village forest. Feeling the necessity of revision, to make it more effective, Govt of the state passed one more resolution in 2008.
Govt felt that the National Parks and Sanctuaries, Mangroves, wetlands and the protected areas of the state too need the participatory mode of forest management but require a different approach. Administration has realized that people living near PAs, while deriving little benefit from conservation, have paid enormous costs in terms of lost access to their life support systems. Further, there is restriction on harvesting of forest produces in the National Parks and Sanctuaries. Hence a need to have a site specific, culturally sensitive with a participatory approach plan for conservation was felt, which will be helpful to provide economic incentives to increase net local conservation and sustainable resource use. As the previous resolutions in the past did not cover all the above aspects, a new resolution came to fulfill the desired objectives.
The total forest areas of the state are categorized in two grouped i.e. Forest Area and Protected Area. The forest areas consists of all the reserved forest, protected forest, village forest and revenue forests where as national park and sanctuaries excluding the core area and the Mangroves, wetlands come under the protected area category. The resolution defined that forest having crown density of less than 40% will be treated as degraded forest land and can only be brought under JFM. The divisional level committee consisting DFO, ACF and concerned RO and Forester will decide the extent of area to be assigned to the Joint Forest Management Committee. However no restriction is imposed, area can be assigned according to the availability and the capacity to protect.
JFMC can be constituted as per the requirement. It may be one in a village and may be many depending upon the hamlet and community composition. The committee will be known as VSS in Forest area and as Eco-development committee in protected area. The process of forming a committee will be initiated by the Forest Department. A forester will request to the Grampanchyat to convene a meeting where s/he will explain details about JFM. If 60% of the adult members agreed then they can constitute a JFMC. But again it depends upon the approval of the DLC. All the adults are eligible to be a member of the committee on payment of an enrolment fee of one rupee per person. The concerned forester or the VFW will be the ex-officio secretary whereas chairperson and vice chairperson will be elected. This resolution has tried to ensure women participation in decision making body. There will be an 11 member committee, out of which 5 and either the chairman or the vice chairperson shall be a woman.
The other side of the story is that it has made it compulsory to take the word member (s), forester/ VFW and concerned forest guard as ex-officio member and also to elect a village opinion leader. As the range officer will act as the returning officer for the election, there is every possibility to elect only the members who will be favorable for the FD. The JFMC have the power to remove only the elected (non-official) member showing the reason of not discharging duties satisfactorily by a simple majority. The member secretary will be one of the joint account holders. The DFO has the power to dissolve, reconstitute or supersede the JFMC and assigned the management with forest department. There is a provision of signing a MOU in between the JFMC and FD for active participation, where as the format is more in the form of an undertaking from the committee to perform the duties and shoulder the responsibilities.
The recent resolution is only a change in letter but not in spirit. Many times Govt has realized the failure and also acknowledge the community efforts to manage the forest. However the department still having lots of apprehension in handing over the total management of the resources to the community. The department has tried to keep the control over the resources in this resolution too. Even Govt has not considered the provision made under the Forest Right Act -2006 while drafting the resolution which may create conflict in future.
Ghasiram Panda
A/70, Saheed Nagar
Bhubaneswar
ghasirampanda@gmail.com