El Control Interno

Abstract

The study on the participation of community in forest protection is not a new phenomenon. The country has a history of protecting and managing the forest by its traditional means and practices. Despite the background the declination in the forest area has increased. Declination of forest cover is not only due to the pressure of population but due to undue practices of modern technologies and introduction of monoculture. The JFM do reflects about the join participation of Panchayats and forest department but their also arises a confusion in lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities. Through 70% of the women are participating in the forest management activities through attending general meetings, patrolling, and formation of SHGs in the regions but not as key actor in the process of decision and management of forest.

Introduction

Forests play a key role in regulating climate, maintaining ecosystems, providing livelihoods in the form of firewood, fodder, medicinal plants, wild fruits, feasible climatic conditions and other environmental services in mountain regions. Many mountain communities are directly and indirectly dependent on the forest for their livelihoods. In addition, mountains are the home of the major rivers, which is a lifeline for the downstream areas. The Uttaranchal Himalaya is located in the centre of the Himalayan Mountain System (HMS). Forest covers 60 percent of the land, where a rich diversity in forests is found which ranges from sub-tropical to sub-temperate, temperate and alpine.

Uttaranchal occupies an area of 51,125 sq km and a population of about 6 million (94.4

Per square kilometre). This state lies between 28o 53' 24'’-31o 27' 50'’ N and 77o 34' 27'’-81o 02' 22'’ E. Of its total geographical area, about 47,325 sq km (92.6 percent) is covered by mountains,

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while 3,800 sq km (7.4 percent) forms Tarai plains. The total snow covered area of the mountainous region is 7,632 square kilometre (16.1 percent), with an elevation of over 4,000 metres. The mid Himalayan region (1,000 to 3,500 metres) has many high mountain peaks, fertile lands, meadows, rivers, streams and valleys. The entire region is geographically important and is comprised of the two distinct landscapes: the Garhwal and Kumaon Himalayas comprising thirteen districts.

The concept of people’s participation in management of forests is not new to India. The country historically has great traditions of protecting and managing forests as common natural resources. Every village hamlet and community ensured that the utilization of natural resources including forests did not exceed the ecological carrying capacity. The economic and political colonization of the country adversely affected the traditions of conservation of sustainable utilization of resources. The forests and the people, which grew under the mutually beneficial relationships, suffered together, as the growing population put ever-increasing demands on the resources. The forest wealth gradually depleted and the people and forests were caught in the vicious circle of ecological and economic deprivation. Post independence, forestry practices also continued to neglect the need for forest conservation practices and people’s involvement in the process. For nearly four decades after independence, the process of commercial exploitation and degradation of the forest continued one after the other.

During the 80s, the satellite imageries sounded the alarm bell by pointing to the fact that less than 14 % of the country’s area was under forest cover as against the desired figure of 33 %. Good tree cover was found in few isolated patches only and large parts of the forest areas were suffering from various degrees of degradation. These warning signs of impending ecological crises let to serious review of the approaches to the management conservation and utilization of forests. Although the 1952 forest policy aimed at forest coverage of one third of the total land area of the country, due to various constraints, no efforts were made to attain this. Diversion of vast stretches of forestland was made for non-forest use; the biological diversity was considerably affected as also the good tree cover and the forest area.

stability of the country was realized by the conservationist, foresters, as well as the government, which necessitated the reexamination of the policy, laying emphasis on the conservation and sustainable utilization of our forest resources. The National Forest policy of 1988 recommended significant departures from the existing forest management policies and practices. One of the main recommendations was the involvement of people in forest conservation and management as the major means of putting off the impending ecological crises and providing the benefits of these efforts directly to the people. It was realized that conservation and proper management of forests was not possible without active participation of the local people. Efforts were accordingly initiated in the seventies to involve local people in this task. This approach of involving the local people in the protection and management of forests is commonly referred to as Joint Forest Management (JFM).

Salient Features of the 1988 Forest Policy

1. Maintenance of environmental stability through preservation and restoration of ecological balance.

2. Conservation of the natural heritage of the country by the preserving the natural forests and protecting the vast genetic resources for posterity.

3. Meeting the basic needs, especially fuel wood, fodder and small timber for the rural and the tribal people. 4. Maintaining the intrinsic relationship between forests and

the tribal and other poor people living in and around forests by protecting their customary rights and concession on the forests.

In order to translate the forest policy vision into reality, the Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India issued guidelines in June 1990 to facilitate involvement of forest communities in the protection and management of forests. This led to the birth of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme under which, the State Forest Departments and village communities enter into an agreement to jointly protect and manage forest land adjoining villages and to share the responsibilities and benefits. In the 1990s, most states started JFM programme. The ministry issued a fresh set of guidelines in February 2000 and December 2002 to further strengthen and streamline the programme.

Community participation emerged as the defining principle of forest policies. The access to forests and participation in their management has always been a bone of contention between the state agencies and the local communities. With the growing international concern over deforestation, the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, a partnership between Forest Department (FD) and Forest Communities (FC) to protect, conserve and sustainably manage forest and its produce was started as a small experiment in Arabari of West Bengal in 1972 by Dr. A. K. Banerjee (Malhotra and Deb, 1998). Initiated in India in 1990, it has now emerged as a boon in the drive to afforestation, being the country’s biggest effort till date not only in checking rapid deforestation but also increasing the forest. While the current policies seem to be advancing communities’ role in forest management, yet there are several bottlenecks in terms of their implementation cover. The dominant role of the forest department, failure to involve community as an equal partner, weak institutional mechanism and inadequate legal back up, among other factors, have obstructed the satisfactory execution of the policies. This paper is to study about the participation and the changing paradigms of successive forest policies in India and argues that the real participation of the community can be ensured only when it is accorded a meaningful stake in all forest matters affecting the community.

Chipko Movement

The Chipko Movement began in 1971 as a movement by local people under the leadership of Dashauli Gram Swarajya Sangh (DGSS) to assert then rights over the forest produce. Initially demonstrations were organized in different parts of Uttarakhand demanding abolition of the contractual system of exploiting the forest-wealth, priority to the local forest-based industries in the dispersal o forest-wealth and association of local voluntary organizations and local people in the management of the forests.

In 1982 , in spite of these demonstrations, the DGSS (now DGSM, M for Mandal) was refused, by the Forest Department, on ecological grounds, the permission to cut 12 Ash trees to manufacture agricultural implements. At the same time, an Allahabad based firm was allotted 32 Ash trees from the same forest to manufacture sports goods. On hearing this news, Chandi Prasad Bhatt threatened to hug

the trees to protect them from being felled rather than let them be taken away by this company. Till this time, however, the women were absent.

In 1974, in spite of DGSS’s protests, about 2500 trees of Reni forest were auctioned by the Forest Department. The DGSS planned to launch the Chipko Movement there. However, the local bureaucracy played the trick and managed to make the area devoid of local men as well as activists of the DGSS. To the utter surprise of everybody, 27 women of Reni village successfully prevented about 60 men from going to the forest to fell the marked trees. This was the first major success of the Chipko Movement. It is after this incident that attempts were made to project it as a women’s movement. After this incident, the Reni Investigation Committee was set up by the U.P. Government and on its recommendations 1200 sq. km. Of river catchment area were banned from commercial exploitation. After Reni, in 1975, the women of Gopeshwar, in 1978, of Bhyudar Valley (threshold of Valley of Flower), of Dongary-Paitoli in 1980, took the lead in protecting their forests. In Dongari and Paitoli, the women opposed their men’s decision to give a 60 acre Oak forest to construct a horticulture farm. They also demanded their right to be associated in the management of the forest. Their plea was that it is the woman who collects fuel, fodder, water, etc. The question of the forest is a life and death question for her. Hence, she should have a say in any decision about the forest. Now they are not only active in protecting the forests but are also in afforesting the bare hill-slopes.

Change in Forest Cover 1974-2001

The overall change in forest cover area in Uttaranchal Himalaya was 1.3 percent, which indicates that even though the high pressure of population on the land increased during the last few decades, the forest cover increased too. Only two districts, namely Pauri and Almora reported negative changes with -5.6 percent and -2.1 percent forest cover in Pauri and Almora respectively. In an area of very high concentration of population in the Doon valley, forest cover increased by about 10.6 percent. This was followed by Chamoli District (4.8 percent), which has the largest area under perpetual snow. Similarly, forest cover area increasedin Tehri (3.2 percent), Uttarkashi (2.2 percent), Pithoragarh (1.7 percent), and Nainital (0.7 percent).

Rational of the Study

Due to the rapidly increasing population and degradation and depletion of forests, it is a challenging task to manage the natural resources, especially forest sustainably. It is time to focus on conservation and maintain the valuable forest resources and biodiversity hotspots all over the world, they provide secure livelihoods at all levels. However, in the context of forestry, Sustainable Forest Management maintains the forests, their ecological functions, processes and overall structure in a healthy condition. The National Forest Policy 1988 also emphasizes on people’s participation for the management of the forests and natural resources with the objective of multipurpose management. In India, the State Forest Departments manage and govern the forest resources for the interest of the society. However, under the existing management practices, the forests are still continuously being exploited and degraded, thus the rating millions of people dependent on forests. In order to have scientific forest management approach to provide maximum benefits to the stakeholders, it is worthwhile to implement and operationalize Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) through community participation. Recently, in the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India, majority of Non Timber Forest Product (NTFP) collection rights have been transferred to the Gram Panchayats. Based on this resolution, the State Governments have issued a notification mentioning the detailed rules and guidelines for regulation, procurement and trading of NTFPs. This will in turn lead to market perfections in trade of forest products. However, it is difficult to generalize the concept and approach in the light of variations across the nation with respect to geography, resource base, socio-economic status, cultural diversity and pressure on the forests. Since the national JFM resolution, almost all the State Forest Departments in India have implemented the programme. JFM is slowly emerging into a form of sustainable forestry in India. It has been mentioned in the JFM Guidelines that the relationship between Panchayats and JFMCs should be such that the JFMCs take advantage of the administrative and financial position and organizational capacity of the Panchayats for management of forest resources. However, there arise a lack of clear and adequate rights over forest produce insufficient autonomy in day-to-day management and no transparent guidelines for ecological sustainability, lack of attention to existing rights and

privileges leading to confusion and often aggravating infra-village inequities in forest access insecurity of tenure and sustainability of institutions due to the programmatic and project-dependent and funding-oriented nature of implementation and focus on only degraded forest department lands leading to only partial coverage of the public lands used by villagers.

Review of Literature

Balooni (2002) states that, participatory approach to forest management organized at a grassroots level by community-based institutions has been implemented in India since 1970 and is considered, by and large, to be successful and an ideal forest management model in the present world forestry scenario. The paper also addresses the processes and circumstances that led to the evolution of participatory forest management in India as well as the past and present forest polices that facilitated this change. Emphasis is placed on an analysis of recent forest policy directives aimed at facilitating the implementation of participatory forest management. The study also highlighted the various experiments conducted by the state of West Bengal Forest Department which had issued the first government order in 1989 to involve village communities in forest protection with provision to give the people 25 per cent of the revenue earned on timber harvested from the protected forest. This successful experiment led to the development of a new forest management strategy known as ‘Joint Forest Management’ (JFM). The village communities involved in the management of government forests in their vicinity under the JFM became known as forest protection committees. This is the first recorded case of ‘co-management’ of forests by FD and village communities in India (Yadav et al. 1998). Another successful experiment mentioned in the study is about Sukhomajri, which began in 1975, a village in the state of Haryana, helped in the conceptualization of participatory forest management. This experiment was initiated as an integrated watershed development programme by the Central Soil & Water Conservation Research & Training Institute (CSWCRTI), Research Centre, Chandigarh. The emphasis was on rainwater harvesting to enhance irrigation of cultivated land in Sukhomajri, which faced a severe soil erosion problem. Forestry became an integral part of the experiment, as the various tree species were planted to protect the watershed, along

with the building of water-harvesting structures for harnessing rainwater. An unwritten agreement between the CSWCRTI team and villagers was developed for protecting the catchment of the water- harvesting structures from grazing and illicit cutting in the area (Samra et al. 2002). This was achieved by instituting a ‘Water Users’ Association’ subsequently renamed as ‘Hill Resource Management Society’ (HRMS). The entire management of this project was handed over to HRMS, which functioned on the principles of participation. Presently, the HRMSs in Haryana are an integral part of the JFM programme in this state. In addition, built upon this successful participatory model, watershed management is now an integral part of the ongoing JFM programme in the country under the ambit of micro-level.

The Indian Institute of Bio –Social Research and Development (2005), carried out a study to determine the level and mode of functioning of the JFMCs and the degree of their institutionalization, on the basis of the following factors through unification of several concepts of social science, ecological science and economics: a) Clarity of Purpose and Role b) Institutional Mechanism c) Capacity of the JFMCs and d) Resource Management.

Though the initiatives were taken by the communities but there are declinations of forest cover .To begin with, one of the first and foremost initiatives to enhance forest cover at a time when forests were declining and being degrading in the country was made by the National Commission on Agriculture (NCA) in 1976. The NCA was set up in 1970 by the government of India to examine comprehensively the progress of agriculture including forestry and to make recommendations for its improvement and modernization. In the case of forestry, the NCA investigated and reported that farm forestry should be accepted as an important factor affecting agricultural progress and as a source of raw material for industry (Government of India 1976). Subsequently, the government of India launched a ‘social forestry’ programme, including ‘farm forestry’ on private lands and established ‘community self-help woodlots’ on community lands on a large scale during the 1970s and 1980 s to reduce pressure on the government owned forests and also to incorporate people in the afforestation programme. However, according to Yadav et al. (1998), social forestry programmes were not successful, as they did not provide sufficient benefit to the local

communities. The emphasis of this programme was more on farm forestry than establishment of community woodlots, where community woodlots are aimed at meeting the requirements of rural communities. For example, whilst the World Bank assisted social forestry programme in Uttar Pradesh overshot its farm forestry targets by 3430 per cent, establishment of community self-help woodlots achieved only 11 per cent of the target (CSE 1985). By and large the State failed to involve people in the social forestry programme (Ballabh 1996).These circumstances also led the State to think of changing its non-participatory approach to forest management to a more participatory one, increasingly involving local people. As such, the social forestry programme provided an opportunity for FD personnel to enter dialogue with village communities, so laying the foundations for JFM in India. There were also sound economic reasons for the initiation of participatory forest management in India. As the emphasis shifted away from imposing punitive measures as a component of the State’s prerogative over forest issues, costs borne of monitoring and enforcement were reduced and the role of state Forest Departments in excluding people from forests was eased