Routledge Handbook of Community Forestry

Bulkan, Janette; Palmer, John; Larson, Anne M.; Hobley, Mary

doi:10.4324/9780367488710

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 530 publications

(859 reference statements)

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“…Established in 1931 under British colonial rule in India, a VP is an unusual example of formalized co-management between communities and a colonizing nation-state (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001;Gadgil and Guha, 1993). The institution considerably predates the period of forest decentralization which expanded globally in the 1970s-1990s (Bulkan et al, 2022;Sikor and Stahl 2011), although resource co-management agreements under Indigenous and local legal orders emerged much earlier (e.g., Takeda and Røpke, 2010). As legally inscribed, VPs are intended to provide a decentralized governance framework to manage forests for both local people's needs and forest conservation.…”

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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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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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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Routledge Handbook of Community Forestry

Cited by 2 publications

References 530 publications

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

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

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

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