Forestry in India

A Story of Management Failure

Presented bySmruti(42)

Nirbhay(29)

What is forestry• Creation, conservation and scientific

management of forests and utilization of their resources.

• protection, perpetuation, menstruation, management, valuation and finance as well as utilization of forest products.

Facts about Indian forest• per capita forest land is only 0.08 hectare • About 200 million is partially or wholly dependent

on forest resources for their livelihoods. • Forestry contribute about 1 per cent to GDP • Large-scale industry - pulp and paper - uses

only about 10% of forest raw material, while about 23,000 sawmills and a large number of cottage unit's process 90%.

• The unrecorded and partly illegal felling amounts to more than half of the commercially harvested timber and firewood

•  Recorded forest in India -67.5 mha(20.55%)

• actual forest cover -63.3mha (19.27%) • Only 38 million ha of forests are well

stocked (crown density above 40%).

History of forest management• Ancient Indian scriptures and literature

mention forest management• scientific study of managed forests and

came with the colonial rule only • The Indian Forest Department was set up

with British officers in senior positions and Indian officers to assist them. 

• Forest Act of 1878- control of all reserved forests including harvesting if timber and restricting access of the people and livestock to these forests.

• 1890 almost every province in India had a permanent forest administration to look after the state forests.

• Historically India had forest cover 65% • It shrunk to 40% by the middle of the

century• Since India’s independence the figure has

shrunk to 19% today.

Causes of forest management failure

• Indian Forest Act 1927 -restricting people’s access to ‘government’ forests

• The Forest Act 1952- village communities should in no event be permitted to use

forests at the cost of 'national interest'. • rights to manage forests were vested with

the state governments till 1976• After that forests put on the concurrent list

• Prior to the Forest (Conservation ) Act 1980 the state governments could take any forest land out of forestry and put to other use such as agriculture, roads, and habitation settlement.

• Until 1988, the policy lands used for commercial purposes

Trends in Forest Management • Social forestry- moving tree planting

activities away from traditional forests and into other common lands and private lands

• It intended to serve the needs of the people at their ‘doors’ and reduce their dependence upon the natural forests.

• It provided incentive to large-scale industries to clear fell ecologically valuable degraded forest areas and common property lands for plantations.

• It created a uniform monoculture of timber species.

• It escalated commercial felling• CFM, PFM, JFM emerged out of the

failure of colonial and social forestry and the Indian government’s forest policies in general.

• CFM-local community initiatives towards regenerating, protecting and managing public and other forest lands.

• (PFM) management systems that are collaborative in nature.

• The Sukho Majri project underlined the imperative of involving the communities in the protection, conservation, management and sharing of natural resources.

• Forest Policy in 1988• Shifting the focus from revenue generation to

conservation • Answering the subsistence needs of the communities.• The policy gives higher priority to environmental stability

than to earning revenue.• It discourages monocultures and prefers mixed forest • The rights and concessions enjoyed by them should be

fully protected.

• JFM) refers to formalized local community and forest department agreements relating to regenerating, protecting and managing state owned, public forest lands.

• The ministry issued guidelines on June 1 1990 regarding jfm.

• share in usufructs • MP provides100% share of the net

profit of the harvesting of timber and bamboo to the JFM.

• As on10.9.2003- 84632 JFM committees• looking after 17.33 million ha of forest

lands except Meghalaya ( which adopted JFM after 10.9.2003)

• 28 State Governments have adopted JFM.

• Almost 60% of the forest cover within the tribal districts of the country, and the tribal families are automatically covered in the JFM programme in these areas.

• As on 10.9.2003, approximately 8.4 million families were involved in JFM programme out of which approximately 2.7 million were ST families.

•  to support JFM programme, National Afforestation Programme (NAP) Scheme in the X Plan i.e., Samanvit Gram Vanikaran Samridhi Yojana (SGVSY) Scheme.

• implemented through a two-tier decentralized institutional set-up

•

• As on 30.11.2004, 561 FDA Projects were operational in all 28 states at a total cost of Rs.1,344.62 Corers to treat 8.13 lakh ha. through 19,234 JFMCs.

• Tribal families are automatically covered as the NAP.

• 50% reservation for women members of both General Body and Executive Body of both the JFM Committee and the FDA should be women.

Shifting of forest policies towards conservation

• 1980 the Forest (Conservation) Act- to check uncontrolled diversion of forest

areas for other purposes, particularly for agriculture and human settlement.

• state govt. cannot de-reserve Reserved Forests or divert forest lands for non-forest purposes without the permission from GOI.

• The states cannot now lease out forests to the private entrepreneurs/ Corporations not owned by government.

Management concern

• PFM not extended to protected areas and well-stocked forests

• lack of clarity regarding tenure• the extent of forestry department control

within JFM is significant. • village organizations in most states have

no autonomous status and can be dissolved by the forestry department.

Some provision should take into consideration

• Provide clear policy signals to the forest-based private sector

• Remove bottlenecks to farm forestry and cut back on subsidized supply of raw material to industry

• Tackle intra-community inequity • Incorporate farm forestry in watershed

development programmes

Forest Resource Management (FRM) in India

O BJECTIVE-• To achieve the optimum development of forest

resources for attaining the overall goal of sustainable development.

• Managing forest resource to meet present needs without compromising the needs of future generations.

• Restoring damaged ecologies.

• To develop and strengthen the stakes of the local community in the management of forest resources.

• To optimize the environmental service rendered by forests.

• First charge on the productivity of the forests should be of the local people for their essential livelihood needs

• National Forest Policy, 1988 has emphasized the of preparation of WP

WP• Infusion of new management practices

based on forest science. • Infusion of modern technology in FRM.

CONCLUSION• single-use strategies inadequate for local

development.• Adopting a contemporary, multiple-use

strategy. • Focusing on generating multiple products

Thank you