Joint Forest Management (JFM)

Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding large scale felling of toddy yielding palm trees in Bihar, 05/06/2025

Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …

Guns and water

Recently, a group of social activists visited the Telangana region to probe police atrocities against the Naxalites. What they were shown by the extremists as their concern for poor villagers was amazing: check dams, boulder-filled dams and water harvesting structures. That the Naxalites are getting involved in water conservation is …

JFM panels empowered

village-level Joint Forest Management (jfm) committees

Community forest management THE NEPALESE EXPERIENCE

In 1993, the Nepal government decided to hand over certain forest areas to rural communities. Six years later, 8,559 such communities are managing 621,942 hectares of forest land in the country. They are bent on accomplishing what the government has not been able to do

Institutional set up

Forest-Users' Group (FUG): It comprises households using or dependent on forest resources. They are identified by the district forest officer (DFO) after a house-to-house survey to check their dependence on the forest. Once the users' group is identified, it charts its own constitution (a five-year plan) for the management and …

Chronicling CFM

Man Bahadur Chettri of Sarang Kot is aware of the gradual plunder of the forests and the evolution of cfm in his country. "For the rulers of Nepal, forests were an infinite source of revenue,' he says. The strategy varied from ruler to ruler. But there was only one agenda: …

Key features

"Notwithstanding anything contained elsewhere in this Act, no part of any national forest, which is suitable for being handed over to a users' group in the form of a community forest shall be given away in the form on a leasehold forest,' reads Nepal's Forest Act, 1993. It defines a …

An organised front

The Samudaik Ban Upabhokta Mahasangh or the Federation of Community Forestry Users (FECOFUN) in Nepal is an association founded by and for community forest users. The federation has been established to increase awareness, expand and strengthen the role of forest users in Nepal. After the enforcement of the 1993 Forest …

A troubled frontier

On November 2, 1999, the department of forests ( dof ) and the Community Forestry Development Programme ( cfdp ), both under the ministry of forests and soil conservation, issued a circular to forest officials across the country to ask fug s to immediately stop commercialisation of timber. "However, all …

A lesson for India

Perhaps the Nepalese forest department had never expected communities to regenerate the forests to the point that they would become cash-rich. But now that the communities have done the

Miles apart

Community forestry has been identified as the only viable forest management strategy in many developing countries. To this effect, both India and Nepal have launched programmes. But while in Nepal forests are on the road to recovery, severe limitations come in the way of managing forests successfully in India. Some …

Policies with a difference

INDIA: A colonial system of forest management left behind by the British NEPAL: Forest regulation and management is hardly 50 years old. INDIA: Ninety-five per cent of forests is owned and managed by state forest departments NEPAL: There is a clear demarcation between various types of forests INDIA: Forestry is …

Hills vs terai

HILLS: Old, stable settlement TERAI: Scattered settlement, more scope for farming HILLS: Population is homogeneous TERAI: Heterogeneous population, ethnic diversity HILLS: Indigenous management practices TERAI: Limited indigenous practices HILLS: Widespread access to forests TERAI: Greatly variable access to forests HILLS: Farming systems dependent on TERAI: Farming systems less dependent forests …

CFM has changed the concept of community life

What is the greatest benefit you have derived from community forest management? There is a centuries-old monastery near our village. It was robbed of its sanctity after the forest around it was denuded. Once the community regenerated the forest, the spiritual splendour that is associated with a religious place was …

Reaping the benefits

For 30 years, 60-year-old Gyan Bahadur Karki, along with his fellow villagers, has been protecting a 24-hectare (ha) patch of forest in the vicinity of his village Kahnu, near Pokhra. He has been sourcing his fodder and fuelwood needs from the forests since then. "But there is a big difference …

The state of forest report 1999

This report is the seventh assessment of the forest cover of the country. It provides analytical information on forest plantations, protected area, joint forest management, forest cover in mining areas of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, shifting cultivation in the North Eastern region. It also provides an overview of the …

Joint protected area management: a simple guide - how it will benefit wildlife and people

This booklet is about a collaborative system of protecting natural environments, known as joint protected area management (JPAM). JPAM attempts to conserve protected areas in a way whereby local communities, wildlife and wildlife habitats can co-exist by mutually benefitting each other, and in which government officials, local people and others …

Message in a baton

In Kesharpur, a tiny village in the foothills of Orissa’s Nayagarh district, villagers search for a baton in their frontyard every morning. Two families find a baton each. The batons decide their day’s work

Model development

In every village, a committee is elected by the people. There is a blanket ban on felling and stray grazing. The committee supervises these bans and resolves all conflicts. It also collects fines, decided by the villagers, for any violation of the protection rules. Similarly, it decides the village peoples' …

At loggerheads

Orissa's forest protection movement, which started in different places at different times, has become so strong that neither do forest officials find it easy to enter the forests protected by communities nor has the government been able to implement its conservation programmes. But the government refuses to acknowledge their efforts. …

Giridhar Gamanga / Orissa Chief Minister

What is your concept of conservation when the state is facing severe degradation of the forests and other environmental problems? My concept is very clear: there has to be a fine balance between development and ecology. But whatever policies we formulate must be accepted by the people. We need development …

  1. 1
  2. ...
  3. 10
  4. 11
  5. 12
  6. 13
  7. 14

IEP child categories loading...