Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

Box 1.12
Andhra Pradesh Community Forestry Management Project
India is a leader in involving communities in tree
planting and forest improvement on state-owned forest
land through a strategy called Joint Forest Management
(JFM), with a portion of the benefits from community
collaboration going back to participating
communities. JFM has taken different forms and has
had contrasting outcomes in the 27 states of India
where it has been applied. Its methods and biophysical
and social impacts have interested policy makers from
around the world. The World Bank has encouraged
expanding JFM and moving it toward community
forestry.
In 2001, the World Bank supported taking a step further
toward community forestry to better address the
Bank’s antipoverty, anticorruption, and improved governance
goals. The Community Forestry Management
Project in Andhra Pradesh stressed that the primary
focus would be on improving the livelihoods and the
physical, social, and financial assets of rural communities
through sustainable tree and forest management.
Increased benefits from the improved resource were to
go to strengthening communities in a pro-poor strategy.
Local community groups were to be legally supported
to take over control, their institutions were to be
strengthened, and the processes made more transparent.
It was recognized that success could be reached
only with changes in forestry institutions, laws, and regulations
and the recognition of tribal land rights. In
early discussions, the government and other partners
indicated their willingness to support such changes.
The project has made good progress on technical
matters and needs to further advance institutional
improvements. Additional training is needed for service
providers, including NGOs, support agencies, and
front-line staff to enhance their ability to work effectively
with local groups in a participatory manner.
Community user groups need to strengthen and form
federations and partnerships to gain power.
A number of nontimber forest products (NTFPs)
provided small increases in incomes to some communities,
and where past plantings were ready for harvesting,
some communities reinvested in the resource.
However, the government has yet to make the required
legal amendments to the Forest Code; liberalize trade
regulations for NTFP harvesting, processing, and marketing;
simplify procedures; require more transparent
audits; or make conflict resolution procedures more
balanced. The government of Andhra Pradesh withdrew
resources previously allocated to the project. The
World Bank reviews stressed the need to address the
above issues and to continue to focus on livelihoods
and pro-poor approaches.
The World Bank Report on India (World Bank
2005) noted the handicap to improving local incomes
when forest resource rights are held by the government
in spite of proposed legislation to return land that had
been taken from tribal groups. The legislation has since
been approved in Parliament, opening opportunities
for increasing the contribution of forests to local
incomes.
Source: Authors’ compilation from World Bank 2002a.
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Elaborate appropriate tools for continual follow-up on
how the management system works and the effects of
management by communities.
Identify different user groups in each area and their
interactions under the participatory development
framework.
Use simpler management plans in which local users
make at least some of their own rules related to use of
forest products and control over encroachment.
CBFM is complex, can be costly, and involves many
stakeholders and vested interests that may support or
oppose CBFM activities. (See, for example, Clay, Alcorn, and
Butler 2000; Borrini-Feyerabend and others 2004.) The following
should be noted:
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Successful CBFM is a slow process and needs to be based
on informed participation, capacity building, and trust.
Enhancement of land and resource tenure of Indigenous
Peoples tends to improve CBFM and sustainable management
of forests (see note 1.4, Property and Access
Rights).
Without addressing overt as well as hidden power relations
and vested interests through clear roles and responsibilities,
availability of information, transparent and
equitable decision-making processes, and monitoring,
Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent communities
may be worse off as a result of project activities (for
example, access to natural resources in their areas may
have been opened up to other stakeholders, but they do
not share in the benefits).
34 CHAPTER 1: FORESTS FOR POVERTY REDUCTION