Forest reform in India

by Angana Chatterji

"There were sal forests before. The sal did not prove as economically beneficial so they [foresters] thought, "Let's cut them and plant others which will be more useful." They felled the sal and planted cashews. This [planting of cashews] was not known to us. It was useless. To them it was valuable. Then came eucalyptus. This grows fast in five years. It fetches a lot more money. With the old sal, the herbs and creepers that grew at the bottom of them went. Other food trees also went, like bhurur, bel, mohul.... The oal tree, only the oal tree gives flowers. This is a lot gone."

- Bishu Baski, Santal Adivasi (Tribal) Elder, Arabari, West Bengal

Throughout India, social processes are linking ecological restoration with issues of social equity. These are rooted in movements that affect all levels of society, from marginalized communities in rural areas to policy makers in national government. These precarious and enduring alliances across vast social strata are evident in movements for public forest lands reform. Key debates relate to equity, access, ownership, and rights and responsibilities in and among forest-dependent communities, state agencies, and other forest user groups.

Initiatives in forest management
About 19.4 percent of India's land area has some forest cover. Resource extraction by the colonial economy, post-independence industrialization and urbanization, clear-felling for agriculture, and accelerated use by rural communities diminished and degraded India's forests. This threatened the survival of forest-dependent rural communities, while nationalization of forest lands eroded community forest management systems. With few acknowledged claims over public forest domains, these communities witnessed a rapid dissolution of their subsistence rights. The strategies of social forestry and other programs failed to answer their needs.

In response, since the 1950s, communities living in and around forest areas in India have organized themselves to protect and manage public forest lands sustainably. Village communities developed community forest management (CFM) systems with little help from the government, NGOs, or donor programs. Communities asserted control over forest resources through grassroots organization, with considerable effect on state and national policy.

The renewed National Forest Policy (NFP) of 1988 promoted environmental sustainability and the subsistence requirements of resource-poor communities over commercial gain from India's forests. In 1990 the Government of India urged local forest departments (FDs), the key state government agencies, to seek community collaboration in forest management. A majority of the state governments have since passed resolutions soliciting the inclusion of communities in collaborative forest protection, in lieu of according them certain user rights.

These joint forest management (JFM) strategies are initiated by state agencies, as policy and program initiatives that allow governments, donors, private-sector interests, and NGOs to collaborate with local communities in managing forest resources.

However, JFM programs and regulations are generic and rigid. A broad-based movement for public lands reform will need varying institutional and tenurial arrangements to democratically adapt to specific situations. In addition, FDs keen to promote co-management ventures on forest lands must distinguish between JFM and CFM and refrain from extending control over CFM systems.

Case study: Orissa - constraints and possibilities
Orissa, a state in eastern India of around 50 million people, has approximately 36 percent of its land area under some forest cover. With a large rural population whose average holding is only 2.8 acres, Orissa is highly dependent on forest resources.

The state witnessed severe environmental degradation during the last and present centuries, with a majority of the village forests affected and community grazing lands converted into private agricultural holdings. This increased dependency on public forest lands, added encroachments for agricultural and settlement purposes, and reduced per capita forest area.

For example, for communities living in Sarangi Range, the per capita forest area was reduced from 2.1 acres in 1901 to 0.7 acres in 1991. Community groups in Orissa recall the immeasurable scarcities that led them to organize responses. Over the last 40 years, they formed forest protection committees (FPCs) responsible for protecting the local forests they used, and through monitored silviculture induced rapid regeneration of natural forests. There are 4,000 to 8,000 functioning FPCs in Orissa, each of which manages anywhere from 60 to over 1,200 acres of forest land. Community leaders from many districts in Orissa say that such initiatives, along with programs and policy measures, have helped alleviate poverty, debt, and despair, and prompted ecologically sustainable management practices.

Role of the Forest Department
In the last decade the Orissa Forest Department (OFD) has introduced important changes. Orissa passed successive resolutions in 1988, 1993, and 1996, to include local communities in forest management. There is an increasing stress on developing strategies for JFM systems in rural areas, recognizing the necessity of alliances, and honoring certain community rights to fuelwood, timber, fodder and non-wood forest products. Concern over forest conditions has led to significant policy changes, including a moratorium on commercial logging in 1987.

However, the OFD currently determines the structure of institutional arrangements between itself and community groups through a process of centralized decision-making. This exclusion needs to be redressed to create participatory management frameworks. Community groups contend that while the JFM resolution has political and institutional support, it has no legal standing and is too standardized to respond to specific community needs or forest capacities. The need for ideological, structural, and scientific changes in forest management is becoming apparent to concerned officers within the OFD. Many officers stress that they need to learn a new language of respect and inclusion, and receive training that allows them to work collaboratively with communities.

Community groups recognize that the OFD has an important role to play in supporting JFM and CFM efforts and providing extension services and technical guidance. They stress that the primary objective of the OFD along with conservation should be community empowerment through supporting livelihood needs. Marginalized communities, particularly women, say that the FD can help ensure equity within the FPCs. The challenge lies in acknowledging the concerns and rights of CFM and JFM groups while creating a shared agenda that allows the FD to intervene in certain capacities.

Important concerns
In Orissa, both CFM and JFM efforts have had inspiring impacts on regenerating the biological diversity of forests, introducing diverse silvicultural management practices, and facilitating people's access to forest resources. These processes have also highlighted differences between the FD's control of the forests for economic gain and the creation of ecological reserves, local communities' use of the forests primarily for sustenance, and debates regarding sustainable management.

CFM and JFM processes are beset with hierarchies of marginalization related to class, gender, caste, religion and other social conditions. Disproportionately, women and other socially disenfranchised sections such as adivasi (tribal) communities are the most disempowered groups. Empowering such marginalized groups requires mechanisms that address these inequities at various levels. Such mechanisms are being established among donor agencies, national and state government bodies, NGOs, and village institutions.

Key questions remain: How can the FD participate in the villagers' initiatives instead of vice versa? How can communities strengthen grassroots initiatives while facilitating democratic decision-making? How can the national government and international donor agencies increase their accountability to village institutions through creating more equitable relations of power?

Angana Chatterji works with issues of social and environmental justice in India. She is an Associate with the Asia Forest Network, UC Berkeley; teaches in the Social and Cultural Anthropology Program, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco; and is on the Board of Earth Island Institute. Note: Thanks to Mark Poffenberger, Madhu Sarin, Richard Shapiro, Neera Singh. References: Contact the author through the Earth Island Journal.

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Orissa Fishworkers Killed
Four fishworkers were killed and 13 injured as police opened fire late at night against participants in an anti-prawn culture demonstration in Orissa in June.

The National Fishworkers Forum had given a 24 hour ultimatum to demolish all prawn ponds on Chilika Lake, from whose fish the workers derive their livelihoods. When the ultimatum expired, about 10,000 villagers descended on 11 illegal prawn farms and destroyed them. Police raided the village at midnight, beating and shooting without provocation. One victim died on the spot; two on the way to the hospital, and the fourth at the hospital.

In response, opposition groups organized a massive transportation strike along India's east coast. The strike totally shut down Orissa's capital, Bhubaneswar. Then, on July 3, a mass of 25000 fishworkers blockaded the main approach road to the Orissa state assembly house demanding demolition of all prawn farms in Chilika Lake. The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that there should be no shrimp farms within 1000 meters of the lake; the demonstrators demanded the court's ruling be implemented.