group 5 2012-2013 presentation on 10-06-2012

2. Joint Forest Management often abbreviated
as JFM is the official and popular term in India for
partnerships in forest management involving both
the state forest departments and local communities.
The policies and objectives of Joint Forest
Management are detailed in the Indian
comprehensive National Forest Policy of 1988 and
the Joint Forest Management Guidelines of 1990 of
the Government of India.

3. Although schemes vary from state to state and
are known by different names in
different Indian languages, usually a village
committee known as the Forest Protection
Committee (FPC) and the Forest Department
enter into a JFM agreement. Villagers agree to
assist in the safeguarding of forest resources
through protection from fire, grazing, and
illegal harvesting in exchange for which they
receive non-timber forest products and a
share of the revenue from the sale
of timber products.

4. Joint Forest Management originated in West Bengal
accidentally at the Arbari Forest Range in West
Midnapore, near Midnapore town in 1971. The major
hardwood of Arabari is Sal, a commercially profitable
forest crop. Ajit Kumar Banerjee, a silviculturalist,
working for the Forest Department as the Divisional
Forest Officer, was conducting trials which were
constantly being disturbed by grazing and illegal
harvesting by the local populace. At the time there
were no initiatives for sharing of forest resources
between the government and the locals, with the
government considering many of the locals no more
than "thieves".

5. The forest official, against the suggestions of his co-workers,
sought out representatives of eleven local villages and
negotiated the terms of a contract with an ad hoc Forest
Protection Committee. The initial program involved 612 families
managing 12.7 square kilometers of forests classified as
"degraded". 25% of profits from the forests were shared with
the villagers. The experiment was successful and was expanded
to other parts of the state in 1987. JFM is still in force at Arabari.
A few years later, Joint Forest Management was employed in the
state of Haryana to prevent soil erosion and deforestation. In
1977, villagers were persuaded that instead of grazing on
erosion-prone hills, building small dams would help agricultural
output on areas currently under cultivation. The program led to
reforestation of many hills in the state.

7. • ANDHRA PRADESH
• A total of 6575 interphases villages, covering an
area of 16.32 lakh have been identified in the
State where JFM can be taken up.
• Vana Samarakshana Samities (VSSs) have been
formed in all these 6575 villages.
• About 5 lakh hectares of the JFM area has been
so far scientifically treated for improving its
productivity.
• Out of 6575 VSS formed, 2667 VSSs are under the
AP forestry Project (APFP) funded by the World
Bank. The remaining VSSs have been formed
outside AP forestry project and are managed with
funds from EAS, CSS, AP Hazard Mitigation
Project, etc.

8. • The Forest Department has appointed 60 women
community volunteers in various forest divisions
to take care of the Gender and Equity issues in
JFM programs.
• There are more than 200 NGOs associated at
grass root level with the implementation of JFM
program. District level NGO networks for JFM
have been set up in 12 districts.
• More than 13 lakh people are involved in the
joint management of forests in the State.

9. • Bihar, Gujarat, Jammu &
Kashmir, Karnataka, Uttar
Pradesh and West Bengal have
adopted JFM in many districts.

10. KERALA
The Government of Kerala has issued JFM orders on 16.1.98. It is envisaged that during
the first year the thrust of the programme will be on exploring the potential of developing
Joint Forest Management within different socio-economic and forestry contexts. During
this period six sites will be selected and studied on a pilot basis. Appropriate models to
address forest management problems in State will be developed and reviewed after two
years.
The recent reports (Ministry of Environment and Forests) State that 7 VFCs (6 VFCs and
one tribal society) have been formed and are protecting 2000 ha of forest.
MADHYA PRADESH
In Madhya Pradesh a total of 4376 VFCs and 3932 FPCs are engaged in protecting 3.5
million hectares of forest land.
It is planned to integrate watershed development work along with JFM under Rajiv
Gandhi Catchment Area Development Programme, which is implemented by the Rural
Development Department of M.P.
MAHARASHTRA
In Maharashtra, subsequent to the issue of JFM orders in 1992, JFM was taken up in
twenty sites of two circles (Thane and Dhule). During 1996-97 the World Bank aided
Maharashtra Forestry Project was initiated and JFM was implemented at sixty sites. It is
proposed to cover another 110 villages in the forthcoming year.

11. NAGALAND
In Nagaland 88 per cent of the forest land is under private ownership. These lands are subject to
constant pressure of deforestation (owing to Jhumming etc.) In a bid to halt this process the
Government of Nagaland has issued formal JFM orders recently. This therefore brings ina measure of
formal commitment both from the Forest Department and the participating land owning community
to protect the forests of Nagaland.
TAMILNADU
The JFM order was issued in Tamil Nadu on 8th August, 1997. The programme is proposed to be
implemented in the watershed mode.
Under this programme, the FD proposes to take up watershed interventions with a budget of Rs. 500
crores. Two hundred Village Forest Councils will be formed per year. These VFCs will be formed per
year. These VFCs will protect and regenerate approximately 3,50,000 ha of degraded forest area.
Tamil Nadu Inter-Phase Forestry Programme (JFM is reserved forests) was the precursor of the 8th
August, 97 order. Under the SIDA aided programme eight interphase forestry divisions (with 40
ranges) and 17 interphase forestry ranges in 10 social forestry divisons were formed in 1988.
RAJASTHAN
In Rajasthan 1640 Village Forest Committee are involved in regeneration of 24400 ha of forest land.
Most of the Committees (1025 in number) have been set up under Aravalli Afforestation Project
funded by OECF, Japan.
The remaining 614 Village Forest Protection and Management Committees have been formed under
Forestry Development Project (OECF, Japan) and they are regenerating 24,333 ha of land.

12. ORISSA
In Orissa a total number of 2373 formal Van Samrakshan
Samiti (VSS) have been formed and these committees are
protecting about 2.96 lakh ha of degraded forests ( this is
about 25% of the total degraded forests in the State).
Further, it is also estimated that around 5000 self-
initiated Forest Protection Groups (SIFPGs) are also
playing a significant role in protecting and regenerating
forests adjoining their habitation. Moreover, it is
estimated that about 78000 ha of village woodlot
plantation raised under the social forestry project is being
managed by 5600 VFCs formed by the Social Forestry
Division. One hundred and thirty-seven microplans have
been finalised for implementing the programme.

13. Subsequent to the Government resolution (amendment) in September
1996 to provide tenurial rights to the village community by declaring
forests within their boundary as village forests, the State level steering
committee set up a working group under the PCCF, to prepare
guidelines for implenenting the Government Orders. The following
suggestions were made by the group.
All the forests within the village boundary shall be taken for the
purpose of JFM, and for the time being reserved forest will be kept out
of the purview of JFM.
To begin with 5 villages shall be taken in each division on a pilot basis.
Forest land within the village boundary shall be demarcated by the
NGOs with the assistance of forest and revenue officials (Rs. 1000/-
per village shall be earmarked for NGOs for survey and demarcation of
forest within village boundary).
These surveyed areas shall be declared as village forests and draft
notification shall be submitted by the concerned DFO to the
appropriate authority by March 98.
Thereafter micro plans will be made for the programme.

14. National Resolution on JFM, 1990
The 1990 guidelines have paved the way for JFM across the country
and 22 states have issued enabling orders till date. The major
provisions of the National Resolution are:
• Providing an enabling mechanism for participation of local
communities and a platform for NGO participation,
• Facilitating institution building and allowed flexibility in their
formation,
• Eliminating the involvement of commercial interests and the
middlemen in the benefit sharing mechanism,
• Providing forest usufruct benefits to participating communities,
• Providing for wage employment to local communities for some
forest related work,
• Allowing for plantation of indigenous, multi-purpose species of
trees and even grasses, shrubs and medicinal herbs,
• Ensuring that the FD only harvests in accordance with a
working scheme prepared in consultation with local
communities.

15. The current study has revealed the existence of a vast
diversity across the JFM states in terms of the social,
cultural and economic contexts, the forest type and
status, forest produce being accessed by people, etc.
Different State Governments have issued orders and
modified the same progressively to incorporate
variations and major concerns that have arisen during
the course of JFM implementation in their respective
states.
States have also issued working rules for JFM to further
institutionalise the programme in the working of the
respective State Forest Departments.

16. Some aspects that have not been provided for by the National
guidelines but have been incorporated by various State Governments
in their order and/or working rules are:
• Criteria of success, monitoring procedures and baseline surveys,
• Defining the working scheme to be a working plan or a micro plan or both
depending upon the scale of planning,
• On the creation, management and use of village funds,
• Grazing control mechanism,
• Membership norms to encourage involvement of representatives of different
hamlets, villages, landless laborers, village artisans, members of forest-based
craft making communities, scheduled castes and tribes, etc. in the General
body and Management Committee of the VFCs,
• The need for expanding the scope of JFM to include aspects of watershed
development and holistic development that are now almost integral to JFM,
• Forum for conflict resolution/dispute arbitration,
• Financial provisions/arrangements for JFM program,
• Registration of committees in some States providing them with several
benefits in terms of legal sanctity and empowerment.

17. The above reveals that the National Guidelines on JFM were
broad and hence provided individual States the flexibility to issue
enabling orders to incorporate local concerns, in consonance
with the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and
National Forest Policy, 1988. Individual State Governments have
exhibited great insight, innovation and maturity in issuing
enabling orders and working rules.
It is to be appreciated that JFM is a dynamic process and during
the course of its evolution, a number of issues and suggestions
would be emerging. In light of this, the National Guidelines
would not be able to assimilate these diverse issues from across
the country. At the same time it would not be practical to revise
these guidelines as and when a new regime of issues and
concerns would arise with the progress of JFM from its current
infancy stage in many States to maturity over a period of time.

18. A plethora of issues have been identified by various
studies conducted across the country by different
agencies, by the Expert Consultation Group and the
current National study. Various State Government
Orders and Working Rules have addressed a majority of
these issues, while efforts are ongoing in other States.
These innovations and adaptations have been
facilitated by the flexible and broad-based nature of
the National Guidelines. The amending of these
guidelines to incorporate all these issues would only
render the guidelines more prescriptive and binding,
which the process of JFM could ill-afford.

19. It is therefore essential that the National Guidelines on JFM issued
in 1990 remain in their original form while State Governments
could be encouraged and influenced by the GOI, NGOs, people�s
groups and VFC representatives into incorporating major concerns
relating to equity, equitable benefit sharing, gender sensitivity,
conflict resolution, etc. into their Government Orders, Working
Rules, FD functioning and JFM implementation.
As part of the National Study on JFM, an attempt was made to
compile the total number of VFCs thathave been formed across the
21 JFM states that have issued enabling orders and the area that is
under JFM. Responses were received from 17 State Governments
by the report finalisation and submission stage. Accordingly, there
are 41,249 VFCs in 17 states and a total of 11.24 million hectares of
forest land is under JFM in 14 states. Of the 17 State Governments
who responded, Karnataka, Punjab and Tripura Governments did
not furnish details of area under JFM.

25. GROUP 4:-
Fiona Castelino (17)
Fiona Rosemary Pulickal (18)
Gayathri Menon (19)
Jinansh Mehta (20)