0312-C1

Joint forest management in Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, India: conditions for institutional sustainability¹

Milindo Chakrabarti, Rajdeep Mukherjee and Atanu Sarkar ²

Abstract

Rapid destruction of forests - mainly in the tropical region - has become a cause for global concern. Joint Forest Management (JFM) - a participatory management regime involving collective action from the primary stakeholders - introduced in the states of India by the Forest Department complemented by moral and financial support from the global community is an attempt to halt the process of degradation of forests, even though the forests are mostly owned by the State. The present paper looks into the process of creating social capital through collective action under the JFM regime, keeping in mind that such actions are never self-governed, rather conditioned by the dictates of the Forest Department. Using data collected from 15 communities of forest users located in the sub-Himalayan districts of West Bengal - most of whom are participants in the JFM programme - the paper attempts to develop indices of collective action across the communities. Data were collected using the protocols developed by the International Forestry Resources and Institution (IFRI) Research Programme. On the basis of the findings, we propose some necessary changes to be incorporated in the design of JFM to make the institutional structure sustainable. To conclude, the paper argues that sustainability of JFM hinges upon an agreement among the powers that be in acceding to the long-standing demand of the forest-dependent people to be given legal backing to harvest and sell forest products. Accession to such demands will ensure a higher level of collective action from the communities in `jointly managing' the forest resources in the real sense of the term.

Section 1 Introduction:

Rapid destruction of the world's forest has become a cause for global concern. The present paper is an attempt to look into the initiatives at institutionalizing Joint Forest Management (JFM) introduced to halt the degradation of forests in India and identifies the factors that contribute to the success or otherwise of such collective action.

The paper unfolds itself in four sections. The next section presents the study area. Analytical insights on the extent of `collective action' vis-à-vis JFM has been presented in section three. Section four looks into the issue of the sustainability of JFM in its present format, suggests some necessary changes and provides the concluding remarks.

Section 2 Study Area:

Forests and their users in two sub-Himalayan districts in West Bengal, namely, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri have been covered in the present paper. Incidentally, this region is considered to be one of the biological hotspots in the world. 12 sites were studied during the period 2000-2001. Five of the sites are located in the hills and the rest are in the plains. We identified fifteen (15) user groups dependent on forests in these sites. More than half - eight (53%) - of the user groups are actively involved in JFM with their involvement being recognized by the FD (registered functional); on the other hand four (27%) groups have registered JFM committees, but they are non-functional now. The rest are not a part of JFM yet.

Section 3: Empirical realities:

What is the nature of collective action among the primary stakeholders vis-à-vis JFM in the northern districts of West Bengal? We derive a "collective action index" relevant for each of the groups with the help of data collected using International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research protocol.

IFRI protocol collects information about the nature and extent of participation of the primary stakeholders in 18 selected activities at the collective level (IFRI, 1999).

1. Plant seeds, seedlings, etc.,
2. Other maintenance,
3. Harvest forest products,
4. Distribute forest products to the local users,
5. Sell forest products,
6. Distribute revenue from the sell of forest products,
7. Rent non- transferable rights to harvest forest products,
8. Interact with higher authorities.
9. Determine timing of the harvest of the forest products,
10. Determine quantity of forest product harvested,
11. Determine the type of technology used to harvest forest products,
12. Determine who is authorized to harvest forest product,
13. Determine type of use that can be made of forest product including religious uses,
14. Sell right to harvest forest products that users can trade with others,
15. Monitor forest condition,
16. Monitor conformance to rules,
17. Sanction rule breakers (e.g., fines, punishment)
18. Arbitrate disputes among local users,

The activities listed above may be categorized under two distinct groups- beneficial activities [R] (rewards) and sacrificial activities [S] (costs/sacrifices). This categorization, however, becomes a bit too complicated if we distinguish between the de facto and de jure situations prevailing prior to the introduction of JFM in this region. Thus two different sets of R and S will emerge. The typology of the activities is given in Table 3.1.

As the table suggests, some activities are to be treated as rewards under both de facto and de jure conditions. Some activities are sacrificial irrespective of the situation . It is interesting to note that a good number of de jure rewards are considered to be de facto sacrifices by the users since the introduction of the institutional mechanism of collective action. It is worth noting that prior to the introduction of JFM, activities from 9-14 and 18 were carried out by the interested individual without any constraint as neither the community was concerned about nor the FD was in a position to control such activities. Thus even, though they appear to be rewards offered by the FD as a quid pro quo to the community in the name of JFM, in actuality, they appear to have constrained the space of activities of the users. Using the typology of activities mentioned above we have renamed the activities. Whereas activities 1-8 are marked as R1 - R8, those numbered 9-18 are denoted as S1-S10. However, we have distinguished across the activities in terms of their de facto positions only.

Table 3.1 Typology of activities:

DE FACTO		DE JURE
		REWARD	SACRIFICE
	REWARD	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
	SACRIFICE	9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18	15, 16, 17

Information was collected from the sites on the nature and extent of people's participation across these activities at the collective level over two points of time - present and 5 years before. From the emerging participation structure, it is interesting to note that:

The highest level of participation was recorded across the communities in terms of R8.
The extent of participation has been quite high across activities R2, R3, S7, S8 and S9.
On the other hand no collective action within the communities were recorded in respect of activities R4, R6, R7.
A very low extent of collective action could be found in terms of activities S2 and S5 (only one group).
No collective action has been observed in respect of R4, R6 and R7.

Compared with the extent and nature of collective action across these communities five years ago, it appears that:

the extent of collective action improved in respect R2, R3, R5, R8, and all the sacrificial activities excepting S2;
lesser number of communities are engaged in R1 and one community that was involved in R4 five years ago is no longer engaged now;
there has been no change in respect of S2.

For both the periods, interaction with higher authorities has been observed to be the most common form of collective action across the sites.

As a next step, we utilized the information gathered to develop some indices to quantify the extent of collective action the user groups are engaged in. We used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to identify the relevant factors and their weights in developing the relevant indices. All the activities mentioned above are considered. The variables are all binary - being equal to 1 to indicate participation and 0 otherwise. SPSS programme was used to identify the components and their loadings.

The results obtained are very interesting. The rotation component matrix for the present situation reveals:

The first component comprises of variables S4, S1, S6, R5, S5 and S10 explains 35.749 % of total variance (rotation sums of squared loadings).
The second component comprises of variables S10, S8, S9, R2, R1, R8 and S7 explains 29.704% of the total variance.
The third component comprises of variables R3, S2 and S3 and explains 14.729% of the total variance.

Incidentally, the activities detailed under component 1 may be characterized as "collective actions in sale". Similarly, those under component 2 relate to "collective actions in monitoring" and variables under component 3 may be classified as those implying "collective actions in harvesting". We have utilized the relevant estimated coefficients obtained from the rotated component matrix for each variable as weights to develop the relevant indices of collective action in sale, monitoring and harvesting respectively, across the communities.

On the other hand, the results obtained for the period five year hence do not throw up such components where the association across the relevant variables can be clearly comprehended. This phenomenon probably points towards the prevailing sense of confusions within the communities five years ago in taking up collective activities.

The first component comprises of variables S2, R4 and S10 explains 29.278 % of total variance.
The second component comprises of variables S8, R1, S9, R8 and S7 explains 29.215% of the total variance.
The third component comprises of variables S7, R2, R3 and S3 and explains 26.312% of the total variance.

The estimated indices of collective action (for the present period) reveals the following features:

Hajipara and Dangapara communities have been involved in collective actions related to all components.
Communities in Nimati-Domohani and Bichabhanga have been involved in collective harvesting and monitoring activities.
Only collective monitoring activities have been taken up by communities in Rampuria, Poobong and Bunkulung
The rest of the communities are not involved in any of the components of collective actions.

Due to difficulty in comprehending the association across the variables in the components obtained for situation pertaining to the period five years ago, we have estimated the collective action indices across the sites using the same weighting diagram obtained for the present situation. The values of the activity variables (0, 1) have been changed as were obtained for the previous situation. They may comparable under the assumption that we have estimated the extent of their collective action if they were to go back five years from now with the same mindset.

communities were mostly involved in monitoring activities only;
collective actions in respect of sale and harvest were confined to a handful of the groups. Communities in Madhya Salbari and Rampuria were engaged in some collective actions related to sale of forest products. On the other hand, collective action in respect of harvesting decisions was observed in Bichabhanga, Bunkulung and Madhya Salbari.

In order to get a feeling about the changes that took place over the last five years in respect of the collective activities in these communities, we estimated intertemporal differences in collective action indices across the communities. The estimates reveal the improvement or otherwise in the extent of collective action in each community.

The findings are worth noting.

Extent of collective action increased significantly in terms of monitoring, harvesting and sales among four communities, namely, Nimati-Domohani, Jayanti, Hazipara and Dangapara. Even though no collective action in respect of sale of forest products has been observed in case of Bichbhanga, it has shown considerable improvement in respect of the other two characteristics. Bhutia Basti EDC has been observed to have initiated a higher degree of collective action in terms of monitoring. However, no efforts are observed to have been made in respect of the other two factors.
While most of the others have maintained status quo over time - some not involved in collective action at all - two communities, namely Rava FPC and Madhya Salbari FPC registered as decline in the nature and extent of their collective action.

Section 4 Towards sustainability of JFM:

The main objective of JFM has been to conserve the forest with the help of local peoples in synchronization with addressing the needs of the people. It provides the local people some benefits that are conditional to their participation in activities to conserve the forest. Our analysis suggests that collective action procedure starts in JFM through monitoring the forest use, which acts as a `social glue' to involve the people in a group to generate desirable outcomes.

The empirical findings help us comprehend two basic characteristics of the functioning of JFM in the sub-Himalayan districts of West Bengal. They are:

Collective action in JFM in a community begins around monitoring activities. Such a finding is quite obvious in view of the avowed objective of the programme while it was initiated by the Forest Department. Gradually, the communities go for collective actions in respect of harvesting forest product followed by those geared to initiate collective decisions about the sale of some of the harvested product. Such unidirectional movement has been observed clearly in respect of communities from Nimati-Domohani, Jayanti, Hazipara and Dangapara as one compares the changes in the nature and extent of their collective activities over time. Even those who were inactive in the earlier phase have been observed to be following more or less the same pattern of behaviour. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Rava FPC recorded a high level of monitoring activities in the earlier period only to be rendered to be completely inactive at present. Members of Madhya Salbari FPC participated collectively in all the activities five years ago. However, they lost their steam over time and record no collective activities at present. It is worth noting that they began JFM with more emphasis on harvesting than on monitoring. We may argue that more emphasis on harvesting than on monitoring on the part of the group might have rendered their collective action unsustainable over time. More investigation into this experience is necessary to arrive at any conclusive understanding of the issue.
Analysis of the data on activities using PCA identified three components under monitoring, harvesting and sale activities. It is observed that each of these bundles of activities consists of some sacrificial activities (S_i) along with some rewarding activities (R_i). The bundle of monitoring activities consists of S10, S8, S9, R2, R1, R8 and S7. The component for harvesting activities is characterized by the activities identified under R3, S2 and S3. The corresponding set of variables for collective selling activities are S4, S1, S6, R5, S5 and S10. This observation provides a clue towards designing JFM for sustainability. Communities are ready to take up sacrificial activities provided they are amply rewarded by positive gestures from the Forest Department. In fact, the rewards in the form of R_i's can be provided by the Forest Department alone. For example, provision of scopes of earning through involving the community in planting (R1) and maintenance (R2) along with continuous interaction by the forest officials (R8) with the locales are good enough to induce people to go for monitoring forest condition (S7), conformance to rules (S8), sanction rule breakers (S9) and arbitrating disputes among local users (S10). This rewards are built in the JFM design and hence the success in some of the cases. However, people will sustainably participate in monitoring activities provided some other aspirations of theirs are fulfilled, namely, harvesting and selling forest products. The corresponding components suggest that again the communities are ready to undertake certain sacrificial activities provided they are compensated with some rewards. The component for harvesting activities include their involvement in determining the quantity of forest product harvested (S2) and the type of technology used to harvest such products (S3). These sacrificial activities are required to be compensated for by the Forest Department agreeing in principle to allow the community to harvest forest products (R3). However, the existing rules are very stringent on this particular aspect - more so in the protected areas. The high level of collective action in Hazipara and Dangapara is because of the fact that they collect a good amount of thatch (a kind of NTFP) from the forests. Communities using forests that do not have such scopes for collection of forest product either due to absence of resources that are allowed to be harvested as per the existing legal framework or due to lack of legal provisions, may not be interested to indulge in collective action in harvesting. The same argument holds good for collective action in sale as well. People are ready to constrain their activities and thus sacrifice by determining who is authorized to harvest forest products (S4), timing of harvest (S1), type of use of forest products (S5) and selling right to harvest to others (S6) along with arbitrating disputes among local users (S10) in return for a right to sell forest products (R5). Relevant legal changes are necessary to provide such rights to the people.

Thus to conclude, we may argue that sustainability of JFM hinges upon an agreement among the powers that be in acceding to the long standing demand of the forest dependent people to be armed with legal backing to harvest and sell forest products. Accession to such demands will ensure a higher level of collective action from the communities in `jointly managing' the forest resources in the real sense of the term.

Bibliography

Asia Forest Network. (1997): Linking government with community resource management: What's working and what's not. Research Network Report Number 9, May 1997. University of California, Berkeley: Center for Southeast Asia Studies.

IFRI (1999): "International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) Research Program: Field Manual, Version 9.5": CIPEC, Indiana University, Bloomington.

¹ This paper presents some results from a broader study being carried out under International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) Research Programme. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by MacArthur Foundation for the study. The help rendered by Mr. Sudhangshu Ranjan Ghosh, Ms. Sarala Khaling, Mr. Joydeep Bhattacharya, Mr. Prakash Ranjan Pal, Ms. Sita Routh, Mr. Nilay Mukherjee, Mr. Krishna Gupta and Mr. Animesh Sarkar in collecting the data from the field is also gratefully acknowledged. Prof. Elinor Ostrom and Prof. Clark C. Gibson gave their comments on an earlier version of this paper. We are grateful to them. However, the usual disclaimers apply.

² Director, CREATE, St. Joseph's College, Darjeeling, India, PIN: 7345104. [email protected]