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

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. • WelfareImplications of Community ForestryPlantations 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-consumption=deforestation) Fuelwood collection => 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 managingforests. • Donor supported Social ForestryWing • 100 000 ha of communityplantations • (reduced tension againstinformalprotection?) • Informalprotectioncommitteesestablished • JFM established in West Bengal • Great majority positive to JFM in Orissa sample • Widespread adoption

7. JFM • Earlyexperiences from West Bengal in the 1970’s • Supportivelegislation in 1988 and 1990. • Wide coverage in 1990’s • In 2003: 17 Mha, managed by 85 000 forestprotectioncommitteescovering 170 000 villages in 27 states. • Importanttool to reachlong-termforest 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. Indicatinglocalprotectionefforts in forest vegetation change in Orissa, Indiausing NOAA AVHRR data. Journal of Tropical Forest Science 12:778-793 • Somanathan et al. 2009. Decentralization for cost-effectiveconservation. 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: 1623–1648. + 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: 1623–1648. • Adhikari, B. (2003), ‘Property rights and naturalresources: socio-economicheterogeneity and distributionalimplications of commonpropertyresourcemanagement’, 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 cost–benefit analysis of Joint Forest Management in Jharkhand, India’, World Development 30: 763–782. • 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 Dev’t 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)