Practical guidelines for pro-poor forest management |
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| Promoting pro-poor participatory forest management (PFM) policy and practice in India and Nepal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A thorough review of policy and its impacts has produced valuable recommendations for making participatory forest management (PFM) more pro-poor in India and Nepal. The proposals range from improving high-level policy processes and making devolution more equitable to the use of new forest-livelihood assessment methods and better processing and marketing of non-timber forest products. They also suggest ways of making local PFM more pro-poor, by leasing forest land to the poor for agroforestry or herb cultivation, for example. The outputs are already being used by donor-supported PFM projects, NGOs, and to some extent by Forest Department field staff and local PFM groups. However, incorporating these recommendations into pro-poor PFM policies could significantly alleviate the poverty of as many as 300 million forest-dependent poor in India and Nepal. Project Ref: FRP17:
Research Programmes: Forestry Research Programme (FRP) Relevant Research Projects: R8101
Partners:
The 3 year 11 month project (and outputs) was completed January 2006:
Opportunity: The poverty of as many as three hundred million forest-dependent poor in India and Nepal could be significantly alleviated by pro-poor PFM policies. Constraints: PFM implementation, despite establishing over 100,000 local institutions and widely regenerating forests, has yet to reduce poverty due to:
Solutions: 1. Promote pro-poor PFM co-learning policy processes Conceptually linking forest management policy and practice with poverty impacts is an essential precondition for reform. Stakeholder engagement is needed through constructive ongoing networking processes to build consensus and pressure for mainstreaming and accelerating pro-poor PFM policy reform. Policy analysis and development mechanisms must be facilitated, and key individual drivers of change [1] and coalitions for reform empowered. This process can be founded on state-level learning groups conducting policy analysis and action research, and championing reform, also feeding into National reform processes including the Planning Commission. [2] Forestry institutions must be encouraged to adopt an adaptive learning orientation [3]. 2. Promote forest-based livelihood understanding, assessment, and monitoring Many policy makers and PFM practitioners significantly underestimate the levels and patterns of livelihood forest-dependency. This project developed an assessment method which proved the high degree of forest dependence and ambiguous impacts of PFM implementation so far. [4] Monitoring systems, adapting these methods, are needed to ensure that PFM interventions' livelihood benefits and costs are understood and refined. 3. Promote community-led local forest management planning JFM in India has not devolved forest management planning to village level, although in Nepal where devolution has occurred, elite male domination means management plans marginalise the needs of the poor and women. Improved devolved planning processes must be: - autonomous from FD silvicultural imperatives and Working Plans - inclusive, democratic, equitable: facilitated on hamlet basis to incorporate poorest groups' and womens' needs. - technically supported and need-based: service providers may propose a range of technical options allowing community to select which product mix best fits their needs. - promote active forest management for higher productivity (eg agroforestry crops, multi-tiered, multi-species, blocking, coppicing) rather than passive (protection and conservation oriented) 4. Improve PFM institutional sustainability beyond scheme / project basis - Independent legal basis of local PFM institutions:. Being based on adhoc administrative registration with DFOs local JFM institutions lack legal protection and inevitably stagnate when donor support ends or FDs loose interest (often coinciding). PFM must be established on a permanent independent legal footing, with a diversity of institutional options reflecting communities customary practices, preferences and local government structures. - Promote demand led, need-based PFM supportrelationships [5]. Existing FD / local PFM group support relationships are typically hierarchial, elite-biased, supply-driven, scheme oriented, routinised, unresponsive and not linked to poverty reduction. Intervention is necessary: - to prompt FDs to become responsive to local PFM group support requests, - to promote social mobilisation to move local PFM groups from passive recipients to empowered support demanders - to diversify service delivery. - Improve local-level PFM governance: weak institutional structures and processes have led to elite domination, stagnation and (anti-poor) malpractrice. This has been succesfully addressed through a range of initiatives (e.g. state formalisation of proper processes, (Nepal), social audit initiatives (Nepal, West Bengal) and use of Right To Information legislation (Orissa)). These should be scaled up. 5. Improve NTFP management NTFP collection, processing and marketing forms a crucial part of rural livelihoods, particulary for the poorest / women who, in the lean season, lack alternatives. Currently a low-level equilibrium poverty trap, there are major potentials: - Improve forest resource productivity for NTFPs. Suboptimal productivity means time-consuming collection and low yields [6]. Intensive forest management is needed, including NTFP cultivation support. - Increase labour productivity and value added. Many capital intensification and processing options exist, requiring only small investment [7] - Improve NTFP marketing relations. Currently exploitative as middlemen (including state corporations) use market dominance to depress prices. Need: policy lobbying, cooperative organisation of collectors, awareness-raising to local government bodies who regulate extraction, and support to NGOs [8] and apex bodies who are actively intervening to support collectors. 6. Promote specifically pro-poor provisions within PFM Several Pro-poor provisions hold major potentials: - leasing forest land to the poor for agroforestry or herb cultivation [9]. - favouring poor households in forest product collection quotas, allocations [10] and royalty charges - mobilising PFM funds for emergency payments, micro-credit, cash dividends - promoting self-employment in forest product collection, processing and trade, mobilising group funds for enterprise development, with preferential employment for poor [1] Key individuals to involve and network with in India may include for instance NC Saxena (Planning Commission); Aruna Roy (RTI work); Madhu Sarin; senior foresters with international exposure: (Maharaj Muthoo; Vinay Tandon, Ajit Banerjee, SD Mukherjee) Ashish Kothari and Seema Bhatt (NGOs in forest protection), Jean Dreze (National Advisory Board) and so on [2] This sort of policy reform process has successfully occurred in many other issues such as watershed policy, district planning, bamboo policy, medicinal plant policy in India. [3] Forestry research institutions could follow the reform model of the Wildlife Institute [4] The actual extent of forest contribution to the livelhoods of the poor can be as high as 40% of annual incomes (cash and kind) (e.g. in regions of Orissa and West Bengal), and the PFM benefit sharing from FD 'final harvesting' as little as under Rs.200 / household / year in West Bengal. [5] Springate-Baginski, Oliver, Om Prakash Dev, Nagendra Prasad Yadav and John Soussan 2003b Institutional Development of Forest User Groups in Nepal: Processes and indicatorsin Rural Development Forestry Newsletter 26 (ODI: London) [6] An obvious example is the current West Bengal FD convention of coppicing Sal forests at 12 years. Leaf collectors only get maximum accessible leaf yield up to 3rd year. A 3 year coppice rotation, at least in some blocks, would be far more suited to their needs. [7] e.g. leaf plate stitching machine, heated leaf plate presses. On a lager scale bamboo heat presses for making boards and flooring [8] such as RCDC in Orissa [9] as per the Leasehold Forestry model in Nepal [10] e.g. in some Community Forest User Groups in Dang district of Nepal's Tarai, timber has been given to poor households from the community forest in order for them to improve their housing. KEYWORDS: Forest, Livelihoods, Poverty Reduction, Equity, NTFP, Institution, Planning, Policy process, India, Nepal,
Forest products and services for subsistence use, processing and sale:
The outputs of this research, are closely related to two earlier FAI projects: R.7889 in Nepal hills, and the subsequent R.7975 in the Nepal Tarai. Value could be added to this output if linked to the outputs of the FAI projects R7975 (in the Nepal Tarai) and R7889 (in Nepal Hills). These outputs focussed on key opportunities for institututional development support to Community Forest User Groups to improve poverty alleviation in rural Nepal. Clustering the outputs of the two projects with this one could support the development of national and international-level pro-poor policy process and transfer of learnings. Improving learning oreintation of forestry institutions could be helped if outputs of R6918 relating to Participatory Action Research learning in silviculture are clustered here. NTFP assessment methodologies, as developed under ZF0077, and NTFP commercialisation (R7925) may also add value to output 5 here relating to improved NTFP management. How the outputs were validated: This project focussed on understanding how livelihoods of the forest-dependent poor could be improved through improving PFM implementation. It did this in 3 phases; 1) initial policy analysis, 2) implementation and impact analysis (using a range of methods including institutional analysis, forest resource assessment, household survey and PRA) and finally 3) by seeking to explain the pattern of impacts by analysing governance and implementation structures and processes. During the project findings were presented in 2 series of workshops. In August 2004 a cycle of 4 regional workshops were held (Kathmandu, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar and Hyderabad). In 2006 a second cycle of workshops has been under way across the study regions. Output 1: Promote Pro-poor PFM co-learning policy processes The project engaged with multiple stakeholders through 'learning groups' and workshop activities in order both that the research responded to their needs and that they 'owned' and championed the findings. The networking processes were found to be valuable in clarifying and building consensus over key policy issues, leading to lobbying for reform. Policy engagement of this sort has promoted cumulative reform, particularly reflected in West Bengal. Here at the first Kolkata workshop (2004), chaired by the PCCF, within 10 days the JFM Notification for the state was revised in line with some of our recommendations. Although the substantive policy change has been modest, it is felt to be a significant achievement of the project in the context of normal FD intransigency, and a validation of the finding that pro-poor policy reform demands concerted engagement. Output 2: Promote forest-based livelihood understanding, assessment, and monitoring The methodology for livelihood assessment involved assessing access to and condition of common property forest resources, private assets (including indebtedness) and income flows (cash and kind). Changes in these due to impacts of PFM implementation were assessed. The method has not been validated as yet other than by the research teams themselves, who found it an effective tool for studying the livelihood impacts of PFM. Workshop presentations were though well received. Output 3: Promote community-led forest management planning processes This finding has been validated independently by one of the research collaborators, Dr Ajit Banerjee, who has, subsequently to this project completion, been testing improved community led forest management planning management in Andhra Pradesh with Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development (SPWD) support, in conjunction with the Andhra Pradesh FD. The FD staff have recognised the need to move beyond afforestation for its own sake on village-adjacent forests and are now beginning to respond to village livelihood priorities, in order to ensure the PFM initiative can be sustained beyond the donor support cycle. The key issue in achieving pro-poor outcomes is ensuring poor groups' wishes are articulated and captured in collective discussions. Output 4: Improve PFM institutional sustainability beyond scheme / project basis Findings relating to improving local-level governance have been validated by three initiatives. In Nepal Care have recently funded a social audit project (managed by Dr Binod Bhatta, a project collaborator) which has been very successful in improving CFUG governance practice. In West Bengal project partner Ajit Banerjee has been conducting follow-on research to assess methods for improving governance in JFMCs using public audit methods. In Orissa Vasundhara NGO, who have been engaged in tenure aspects of this project, have been facilitating local self-initiated forest protection groups to use right to information legislation. In Nepal the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (Govt of Nepal) has recognised the importance of social mobilisation and the need for involvement of NGOs as complementary service providers for the success of CF programme in achieving benefits to the rural poor. They have subsequently produced guidelines to advance from the bureaucratic approach to multi-stakeholder service / support delivery. Output 5: Improve NTFP Management These findings are based on forest resource assessment, household livelihood assessment and policy analysis. They are recognised and replicated by a number of NGOs working in Eastern India (e.g. RCDC and Vasundhara). Output 6: Promote Pro-poor Provisions within local PFM groups In Nepal many of these pro-poor initiatives have been observed to be practiced in a sporadic way, often due to local initiatives or project-based support, and from action research project R.6778. Where the Outputs were Validated: The outputs have been validated in India and Nepal, specifically in the 5 study regions: Nepal hills, Nepal Tarai, West Bengal, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh. Research has focussed on forest adjacent rural communities in these areas, which typically involves some of the poorest groups in India, especially tribal populations, who have been marginalised and often pauperised by the mainstream economic development pattern. The outputs were developed for Hillsides, Forest-Agriculture and tropical moist forest production systems in these regions. The outputs relate to smallholder rainfed humid and smallholder rained highland farming systems. The research focused especially on enhancing productivity and equity within Nepal's complex, integrated hill farming system. Who are the Users? The outputs have been circulated widely at state levels in Orissa, West Bengal and AP, and in Nepal in Kathmandu. The outputs are currently being used mainly by donor-supported PFM projects and by NGOs, to some extent by the DoF field staff, and by some local PFM groups. However they have generally not as yet been incorporated into government policies or normal field practice. In India:
In Nepal:
Where the Outputs have been Used: Please refer to above:
Scale of Current Use: The scale of current use is (as far as we know) limited in India due to limited policy commitment as yet to pro-poor PFM practice. Within donor supported project districts, the field activities are often pursued only on an ad-hoc basis. Therefore it remains essential that state policy and practice adopts and institutionalises these outputs. In Nepal adoption has been better as the policy process has been more dynamic. There has been more rapid recognition of the pro-poor potentials in PFM and many projects have started shifting their strategies in this direction. However the conflict situation prevailing during the project period has obstructed field implementation until very recently. Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success: In Nepal the main factor for the recognition, promotion and adoption of these outputs, has been close working relationships between the research project, the DFID-supported Livelihood and Forests Project (LFP) and the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and the Dept of Forests field staff, which led to constructive working relationships and validation of outputs. Interest from DFID-supported LFP staff has helped the project, particularly in the final period, although the conflict situation prevailing until 2006 has been a major constraint to policy process work. At national level, within the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, the Foreign Aid Coordination Division brings together donor projects in prioritisation and coordination of programmes supported through donor bodies. Additionally the national-level Forestry Sector Coordination Committee (FSCC) has kept poverty alleviation issues in CF on the agenda. .. Donor project field staff have played a key role in promoting these outputs, both within CFUGs and to the DoF field staff. District Forest Coordination Committees (DFCCs) existing in most of Nepal's districts, have provided the ideal platform for multi-stakeholder discussions on how CF can promote poverty alleviation now the conflict is apparently over. In India incontrast to the more responsive policy process in Nepal, the state-level Forest Departments and the national Ministry of Environment and Forests have been remarkably immune to pressures for pro-poor reform in PFM, despite the fact that historic forest policies have been responsible for creating and or exacerbating much of the poverty in forest and tribal areas. Nevertheless multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder research teams at state level sought to involve FD staff in the co-learning process. Reform requires a concerted push: for ongoing promotion of an overarching policy reform process within which specific policy issues can be promoted. This project has been able to maintain this to a limited extent during its lifetime by facilitating 'learning groups' and periodic workshops in which pro-poor issues have been discussed and the pro-poor PFM agenda promoted, but success has varied from region to region. Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways Promotion of Outputs: Overall:
Project partners in each region continue to advocate and promote findings: In India:
In Nepal:
Potential Barriers Preventing Adoption of Outputs: 1. The fundamental constraint in India remains the ossified Forest Department institutional structures, which have remained fixated on timber production since their inception, despite dramatic changes in social priorities. They still lack a mandate for considering or actively engaging in poverty alleviation. Current PFM implementation remains therefore caught within an instrumentalist approach - with Forest Departments conscripting local people to participate in their plantation / protection schemes, with limited devolution of power, security or benefits. 2. The human resource management practices in FDs (especially in India, but also in Nepal) typically militate against sustained reform: heads of FDs (Principle Chief Conservators of Forests (PCCFs)) are typically appointed on political patronage basis rather than merit, and postings are commonly short-term prior to retirement. This creates an inertial and entropic institutional culture. Regular reshuffles throughout FD staff discourage constructive relations developing between Divisional Forest Office staff and local people. 3. Training of foresters remains highly traditionalist: oriented towards perpetuating traditional silviculture, with many texts almost a century old. There is little new knowledge creation in 'scientific forestry' and the technical repertoire is increasingly irrelevant to social needs. 4. Corruption and rent seeking from illicit timber and NTFP trading in South Asia is a major source of revenue for FD staff, Forest Corporation staff, and their clients and patrons. The substantial discretionary authority exercised by FD staff at different levels facilitates this rent seeking, and any reforms which threaten this are resisted vigorously. 5. In India there has been a lack of 'political will' (i.e. political influence from the poor / tribals) for poverty alleviation initiatives relating to forest management, although there has been mass mobilisation around forest land rights. On the other hand there is significant 'political will' stemming from bourgeois political influence to liberalise restrictions on development in forest areas, even if this is at the expense of tribal land rights. There has also been strong resistance in the bureaucracy and political establishment to devolution of powers to local government structures. How to Overcome Barriers to Adoption of Outputs: 1. Policy process facilitation should work on promoting a consensus that poverty alleviation is a responsibility of FD practice. Other reforms can flow from this. This requires sustained pressure that only a funded policy oriented programme can bring. 2. Human resource management is a politically sensitive issue not easily amenable to reform, but pressure from the centre would be necessary. The fundamental importance of this sort of reform in the face of very serious deterioration in the civil service has been recognised in India's 10th 5 Year Plan, DFID's India County Plan (2004) and also in significant recent articles. [12] 3. Reform of training syllabus away from pure 'scientific forestry', promotion of action research co-learning with local PFM groups could be achieved though capacity building and development programme with the Dehra Dun Forest Academy and Forestry Research Institutes. 4. Increasing transparency and reducing corruption in forest management is a very serious challenge which would require commitment at the highest levels in national governments. In India Right to Information legislation is being used to challenge irregularities in FD staff conduct, and programme support to link this in PFM could be undertaken with NGO involvement. The Forest Integrity Network of Transparency International have sought to promote improved forest governance, and again programme support could help, particularly with commitment from the centre and state governments in India. 5. Rigidities of FDs must be worked on both by building coalitions for reform within FDs and also by promoting pressure for reform outside of the FD. Mass mobilisation to raise 'political will' may be beyond the scope of project interventions, but at least political and legal literacy and awareness-raising programmes could help raise pro-poor PFM reform issues up the political agenda. A rights-based approach to CFUG institutional development would be valuable in Nepal; raising forest users' awareness of what support they have a right to from the District office, and how they can get accountability if it is not provided. In Nepal the support extended by the Nepal UK Community Forest Project for the formation and initial development of the Federation of Forest User Groups of Nepal (FECOFUN) has been of major long-term benefit in establishing a major civil society advocacy group for promoting PFM. Similar network support could pay dividends for poverty alleviation in the long term in Indian states. Lessons Learned:
Poverty Impact Studies: The project itself has itself been partly an impact study on the impacts of implementation of PFM policies, in terms of institutional, forest resource and livelihood impacts. Since the outputs have as yet hardly been implemented on a sufficiently wide scale for impacts to be observed there are very few impact studies related to the findings of this study, of this kind. There has been one other study on similar issues for India as a whole, conducted over a similar period, although being based on consultation rather than primary field research:
For Nepal, although not relating to assessing adoption of outputs from this project, there are:
How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups): There has been no study of how the outputs of this project have as yet been benefiting the poor through their application. Although the studies listed above, through qualitative analyses, point to a number of aspects where livelihoods improvements are possible, they have not quantified impacts.
Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits: Environmental benefits would include through improved forest management, improving the forest cover and regeneration. Where forests have degraded through de facto open access introducing PFM leads to improved forest protection and regeneration. Adverse Environmental Impacts: The main risk is that with intensified management forests, although improving forest cover, may reduce biodiversity. Although degraded forest land may improve in forest cover, there is a risk that plantations of exotic or horticultural species are introduced to replace what were once biodiverse natural forests. This may be mitigated by facilitating biodiversity consideration as part of PFM extension. Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters: Improving condition of and access to forest resources offers major safety nets in case of crop failure and natural disasters (such as wild food and other NTFP collection, and perhaps timber sale opportunities) Relevant Research Projects,
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