Tenure and forest management in India

1
Tenure and forest management in India how
should we assess the JFM reform?

• Gunnar Köhlin and colleagues
• Book workshop Lake View Hotel
• Land Reforms in Asia and Africa Impacts on
  Poverty and Natural Resource Management

2
Papers drawn upon

• Woodfuels, Livelihoods, and Policy Interventions
  Changing Perspectives, Arnold, M., G. Köhlin and
  R. Persson (2006), World Development, Vol. 34/3
  pp 596-611.
• Welfare Implications of Community Forestry
  Plantations in Developing Countries The Orissa
  Social Forestry Project, Köhlin, G. and G.S.
  Amacher (2005), American Journal of Agricultural
  Economics, Vol. 87/4, pp 855-869.
• Fuelwood, forests and community management
  evidence from household studies, Cooke, P., G.
  Köhlin, and W.F. Hyde (2008), Environment and
  Development Economics.
• Spatial Variability and Disincentives to Harvest
  Deforestation and Fuelwood Collection in South
  Asia, Köhlin, G. and P. J. Parks (2001), Land
  Economics, 77 (2) 206-218.

3
'The Other Energy Crisis Fuelwood'

• Eckholm (1975)
• "for more than a third of the world's people, the
  real energy crisis is a daily scramble to find
  the wood they need to cook dinner".
• Application of gap models
• (forest growth-consumptiondeforestation)
• Fuelwood collection gt deforestation

4
Predictions/expectations

• Massive deforestation
• Scarcity of energy
• Increased time collecting
• Reduced production/leisure
• Inferior fuels
• Reduced nutrition and health
• Increasing part of household budget to fuel

5
Implications

• Large scale investments in community plantations
  (e.g. village woodlots)
• Dissemination of seedlings to private households
  farm forestry.
• Rehabilitation of government forests.
• Dissemination of improved stoves, biogas etc.
• Division of the country between donors (Sida,
  ODA, ADB etc) Sida took Tamil Nadu, Orissa and
  Bihar1 billion SEK over 10 years

6
The emergence of JFM in Orissa

• Forest Department, parastatal/paramilitary/
  corrupt/inefficient in managing forests.
• Donor supported Social Forestry Wing
• 100 000 ha of community plantations
• (reduced tension against informal protection?)
• Informal protection committees established
• JFM established in West Bengal
• Great majority positive to JFM in Orissa sample
• Widespread adoption

7
JFM

• Early experiences from West Bengal in the 1970s
• Supportive legislation in 1988 and 1990.
• Wide coverage in 1990s
• In 2003 17 Mha, managed by 85 000 forest
  protection committees covering 170 000 villages
  in 27 states.
• Important tool to reach long-term forest cover
  objectives.

8
Institutional issues

• Shift from social forestry to local management of
  natural forests.
• More conservation than basic needs.
• Constrained fuelwood collection.
• Efficiency vs equity.
• Women and landless negatively affected
• Does devolution of power really mean less
  government control?

9
Concerns of constrained collection

• Displacement effect?
• Collection in neighboring areas
• Replacement effect?
• Own plantation of fuelwood trees
• Market purchase
• Fuel switching
• Reduced consumption?
• Increased time allocation?

10
Review impact on forests

• Ostwald et al. 2000. Indicating local protection
  efforts in forest vegetation change in Orissa,
  India using NOAA AVHRR data. Journal of Tropical
  Forest Science 12778-793
• Somanathan et al. 2009. Decentralization for
  cost-effective conservation. PNAS 106(11).
• Baland et al. 2008. Forests to the People
  Decentralization and Forest Degradation in the
  Indian Himalayas, draft.
• Ravindranath and Sudha. 2004. Joint Forest
  Management in India Spread, Performance and
  Impact

11
Review impact on collection

• - Agarwal, B. (2001), Participatory exclusion,
  community forestry, and gender an analysis for
  South Asia and a conceptual framework, World
  Development 29 16231648.
• Bandyopadhyay and Shyamsundar, Fuelwood
  consumption and participation in community
  forestry in India, WBPRWP, 2004.
• Ravindranath and Sudha. 2004. Joint Forest
  Management in India Spread, Performance and
  Impact

12
Review impact on equity

• Agarwal, B. (2001), Participatory exclusion,
  community forestry, and gender an analysis for
  South Asia and a conceptual framework, World
  Development 29 16231648.
• Adhikari, B. (2003), Property rights and natural
  resources socio-economic heterogeneity and
  distributional implications of common property
  resource management, Working Paper 1-03, South
  Asian Network for Development and Environmental
  Economics, Kathmandu, Nepal.
• Kumar, S. (2002), Does participation in common
  pool resource management help the poor? A social
  costbenefit analysis of Joint Forest Management
  in Jharkhand, India, World Development 30
  763782.
• Ravindranath and Sudha. 2004. Joint Forest
  Management in India Spread, Performance and
  Impact

13
Potential welfare impacts of SF

• Aggregate individual WTP (CVM on additional
  community plantation in Environment and Devt
  Economics)
• Impact on deforestation (Köhlin and Parks in Land
  Economics)
• Impact on fuel consumption (thesis)
• Impact on collection time (Köhlin and Amacher in
  American Journal of Agricultural Economics)

14
And colleagues?

• Somanathan, Indian Statistical Institute, New
  Delhi
• Ashokankur Datta
• Ravindranath, Indian Institute of Science,
  Bangalore
• Indu K Murthy
• Madelene Ostwald, Gothenburg
• Gundimeda, IIT Bombay

15
Potential data

• NSSO, 54th round, 1998, special section on
  commons
• Standard NSSO rounds
• EERN data from six states during 2001-2002 (1421
  JFMC)
• Forest Department records
• Remote sensing

16
Potential research issues

• Environment The impact on forest quality and
  effectiveness in arresting forest degradation
  (incl. spillover effects).
• Equity The distribution of cost and benefits of
  the program on different segments of village
  population. (over time?) Links to participation
  in FUGs.
• Efficiency the returns from alternative forest
  management

17
Potential strategy I

• Identify villages in NSSO special round
• Combine with general village level data
• Combine with Forest Department data on year of
  JFM establishment, land use etc etc.
• Combine with remote sensing data on vegetation

18
Potential strategy II

• Start with EERN data
• Combine with general village level data
• Combine with Forest Department data on year of
  JFM establishment, land use etc etc.
• Combine with remote sensing data on vegetation

19
Other alternatives

• Review existing literature on devolution of
  forest management in India
• Do original data collection, eg follow-up surveys
  based on EERN or Orissa data
• Tree planting on private lands (farm forestry)
• Social forestry (community plantations)