‘If there is jangal (forest), there is everything'

Stevens, Madison; Krishnamurthy, Ramesh

doi:10.4324/9780367488710-29

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Furthermore, meaningful devolution requires nurturing democratic, self-governing CBFM institutions with clear communal property rights and empowerment of forest-dependent women/men to make real choices for enhancing sustainable livelihoods in accordance with their own priorities [29]. Stevens and Krishnamurthy [49] suggested that "if supported by an empowering regulatory landscape, VPs may be the institution best poised to effectively safeguard biodiversity and human well-being".…”

Section: Decision-making By Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Aspects of People’s Participation in Community-Based Forest Management from the Case of Van Panchayat in Indian Himalaya

Nagahama

Tachibana

Rakwal

2022

Forests

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The importance of community-based forest management (hereafter, CBFM) is drawing attention to forest policies in finding solutions for deforestation and importantly to also understand the basis of people’s involvement. Focusing on the latter, the study presented here targets a regional CBFM (Van (forest) Panchayat; hereafter, VP) at the village level in Uttarakhand, India and looks into characteristics and critical aspect of people’s participation. Participatory observations were conducted in four selected villages, followed by structured interviews with 113 of a total of 131 households and semi-structured interviews with additional 28 female villagers. Some specific findings were (a) the VP members were mostly involved in forest-related activities, e.g., plantation, forest patrols, (b) a greater use of firewood by the management committee (hereafter, MC) where most members were from the higher-caste, and (c) most of the VP forest users were women; however, few women members were involved in decision-making, as they were mostly fixed members and they had not voluntarily chosen their positions. In the above context, it implied a limited participation of women in the decision-making process, i.e., no or little involvement in the management plan by the main VP forest users. Results concluded three stages of local peoples’ participation in forest management: “participation in activities”, “participation in decision-making” and “participation in management plan creation”. In summary, what our study shows is that participation by the VP members in CBFM activities was easy. The most difficult aspect related to the participation of female members was the decision-making process in each VPMC investigated.

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Section: Decision-making By Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Aspects of People’s Participation in Community-Based Forest Management from the Case of Van Panchayat in Indian Himalaya

Nagahama

Tachibana

Rakwal

2022

Forests

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“…This research draws on in-depth fieldwork involving interviews and forest walks conducted from November, 2019 to January, 2020 in ten villages in Johar Valley (see also Stevens and Krishnamurthy, 2022; methods’ summary in Appendix S1). The on-site team for this study involved the first author and two field assistants, who translated and offered expertise in forest and wildlife management.…”

Section: Study Area and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Hindu Kush Himalayan region (HKH), as in many other tropical montane places, local communities manage forests as common pool resources, relying on longstanding customary institutions to make day-to-day decisions and strategically plans for long-term resource stewardship (Wester et al, 2018). Community forests across the region rely on local managing bodies to monitor forest resources, set and enforce use restrictions, and undertake restoration (Barnhart, 2011;Mukherjee, 2014;Stevens and Krishnamurthy, 2022). Some community forest institutions are formalized in legislation and/or co-managed with state institutions, while others persist informally.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Many mountain paths: Perceiving change in the management of community forests in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India

Stevens,

Satterfield

2024

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

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India's high mountain, van panchayat forests are a long-standing example of community-led forest governance. These provide vital support for mountain communities’ wellbeing, yet little is known about how environmental and social change is currently perceived or addressed, despite many claims that characterize van panchayats to be in crisis due to policy interventions by state forest actors and erosion of local management institutions. This research investigates how changes in forest dependence, governance, and health drive forest management decisions. Using open-ended interviews with 41 forest stewards and knowledge holders in a high mountain valley in Uttarakhand, our analysis describes managers’ perceptions of environmental and social changes and their implications for management choices. We found that van panchayats are currently navigating stewardship pathways in response to: (a) population shifts and changes to historically forest-dependent livelihoods; (b) a shift in governance regimes across van panchayats, affected by both regulatory changes and local institutional capacity; (c) the effects of global environmental change as it intersects with local influences on mountain ecosystems. Forest stewards’ perceptions of the drivers, trends, significance, and appropriate management responses to these changes varied widely. An overall decline in rightsholders’ dependence on forest resources was commonly reported, as was improved forest health in van panchayats in relation to other forest types. However, van panchayat managers disagreed on whether declining dependence positively or negatively affects forest health, whether the state is absent or actively wresting control from communities, and if successful forest restoration efforts will continue. A lack of shared understanding of these issues complicates forest stewards’ efforts to cooperate towards mutually desired ends, exacerbated by a co-management policy which isolates forest councils’ efforts from neighbouring forests. Accordingly, we encourage policy changes to enhance collaborative decision-making and to address implications of diverse perceptions, priorities and practices of care in mountain forests.

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Care, conflict, and coexistence: Human–wildlife relations in community forests

Stevens,

Rawat,

Satterfield

2024

People and Nature

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Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) presents a persistent challenge for global biodiversity conservation. Yet, focusing on conflict alone may obscure the complex drivers of positive and negative interactions between people and wildlife coinhabiting the same geographies. In India's Uttarakhand Himalayan region, van panchayat (VP) community forests support agro‐pastoralist livelihoods and forest protection. While the governance and livelihood dimensions of the VP are well documented, their engagement with wildlife is sparsely investigated, despite that community forests are important spaces of human–wildlife interaction in shared landscapes. Enabling community forests to contribute effectively to wildlife management requires understanding what local factors drive stewardship while reducing conflict. Informed by interviews conducted in 2019–2020 and household surveys collected in 2021 in 15 villages in Pithoragarh District, Uttarakhand, we explore the nature of human–wildlife relations in VPs. We report on qualitative and quantitative analyses to consider community forest users' perceptions of living with wildlife—mediated by cultural norms, livelihood demands, and everyday encounters—and investigate beliefs about (1) lethal control as a response to conflict and (2) responsibilities for managing and protecting wildlife. Our findings indicate high prevalence of HWC and associated hardships (mentioned by 71% of survey participants), alongside high expressed ethics of care, tolerance, and responsibility for wild animals (60%). Most participants rejected killing wildlife in circumstances of conflict as acceptable based on moral prohibitions and the availability of alternative options while adopting significant responsibility for their protection. Characterizing community forests as important sites of interaction and coexistence, residents identified community‐led forest conservation as a primary strategy for mitigating HWC. These multifaceted human–wildlife relationships, shaped by encounters in a shared landscape, inform communities' decisions and coping strategies for coexisting with their wild neighbours. Approaches to mitigating conflict that prioritize separating people from wildlife and emphasize the state's responsibilities for wildlife management may undermine communities' roles as conservation actors. Conversely, legal recognition and support for the role of community forests in wildlife management could enhance the legitimacy and effectiveness of management decisions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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‘If there is jangal (forest), there is everything'

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Critical Aspects of People’s Participation in Community-Based Forest Management from the Case of Van Panchayat in Indian Himalaya

Critical Aspects of People’s Participation in Community-Based Forest Management from the Case of Van Panchayat in Indian Himalaya

Many mountain paths: Perceiving change in the management of community forests in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India

Care, conflict, and coexistence: Human–wildlife relations in community forests

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