Stake enhancement in participatory management

Akham Bonbirdhwaja Singh *

Large scale logging & clearing of forests near Moreh :: Pix - Dr Oinam Sunanda Devi

"An ideal village should be so conditioned that the villagers could produce all their daily needs and requirements of materials of thatch, bamboos, fuel wood, grazing, etc. from within a radius of five miles."
Mahatma Gandhi

We have embarked upon participatory management of natural resources and village resources; even for other public resources the participatory model has been adopted. The participatory management is now generally practiced in corporate world also, but I shall be talking about the natural resources only here. Almost all countries in Africa and many Asian countries are promoting participatory management. This shift in management paradigm is a change which has come to stay. But there is a need to have a booster as there are still quite a lot of skepticism in the minds of the Foresters and Government Officials that what could be the fate of the forests particularly the public Forests after say twenty or thirty years of joint management.

If something goes wrong, that could be ecological disaster. For the private and community forests, the equation is different as the status of forests shall remain unchanged. There is no provision for taking over the private forests or community forests by the Government at all in participatory management. But, in the minds of the villagers also, some doubts still persist. There are also doubts about the success of the programme. This may affect the chances of success. But the fact is that, we have eased out the government's role so much that it shall be just not possible to go back to the old system. So, we cannot afford to lose in this venture, we are with Hobson's choice of making it successful. Success may look distant, but not impossible.

Let us now understand why we are taking up the participatory management. In the past, forests have been managed exclusively by the state but due to heavy disturbance from the local people in the form of burning, illegal felling, grazing etc. there were more and more degradations. For various reasons, the people in rural areas are depending on the forests for their livelihood and to supplement their income. This may be so because forest look like an open wealth, and because the people have no job and other means of livelihood.

Protecting by policing the forests has been yielding limited success. So, the first task in participatory management is too meet this requirement of livelihood of the people. Secondly, with the growing population and fast pace of development, there is a lot of pressure on the natural resources and already there are signs of changes in the environment and climate. Unless the forests are managed sustainably, the developments cannot last. Thirdly, we have to look beyond meeting the livelihood only, for development of the villages, because rural India is three fourth of India, the country cannot develop leaving behind the rural India.

In Common Forest Resources (CFR) management, the participatory management has been a gradual development and started sometimes back. Actual participative forest management refers to processes and mechanisms that enable those people who have a direct stake in forest resources to be part of decision making in all aspects of forest management, from managing resources to formulating and implementing institutional frameworks. The movement started in 1971, but during later stage of 6th Plan, the Social forestry and Tribal development Plan works were aimed at welfare of the villager's with some element of involvement of local people. The stakeholders may be many, the local people, the government, the general public, other institutions, Voluntary Agencies etc. but the peoples' stake is the key stake and more important than stakes of other stakeholders.

In 1984, the Forest Ministry issued a guideline for participatory management but the actual notification came as a result of some innovative experiment at Arabari in West Midnapore district of West Bengal by a Forest Service officer named Ajit Kumar Banerjee working as Divisional Forest Officer. He was a great forester and his contribution towards participatory management has been quite remarkable and the evolution of participatory management took a concrete shape. The efforts of the West Bengal Government were assisted by the fact that the Sal Coppice forest was still having good rootstock and vigour.

Following this success and successes in Odisha and Haryana, the Government of India's famed notification of June 1st 1990 was issued and thus the JFM (Joint Forest Management) was born. Now, participatory management is quite widespread and has gone to sectors other than forestry too. In Manipur, the JFM notification was issued on 8th June, 2000 with detail functioning mechanism of JFM Committees. Later, for implementation of the National Afforestation Programme (NAP), Forest Development Agencies were constituted vide order dated the 26th October, 2002 as federation of JFM Committees and this two tier structure of participatory management came into existence. Such arrangement also exists in wildlife areas and the village level committees in PAN (Protected Area Network) areas are named as Eco Development Committees (EDC).

In village resources, in Manipur particularly, all the villagers have common stake. We see that each and every one have their stake in the village resources, be it water or firewood and other minor ones such as thatch grass, wild vegetables, grazing ground, MAP (medicinal and aromatic plants) etc., everyone has a right. By and large, this is common to all, the hill villages and villages in the plain. So, local people are the most important stakeholder in a participatory management. In making a JFM success, the role of the people is the most important. So, they are to be fully involved, this should give them the sense of belongingness. Should they get involved for free? They are poor villagers, economically weaker group. They would not be able to get involved if it is not going to fetch them enough to meet their requirement.

Secondly, equity should be very important consideration and if the stakeholders feel that their right or share is not assured, their involvement may not complete. Further, in many parts of India and most parts of Manipur, the participatory management is with only project driven dynamism, once the project money is over, the venture also is mostly wind up. This has to be broken. So, two aspects I consider most important are (i) constitution of JFM by following proper process of formation, where issue of equity and democratic process are taken care; (ii) Proper identification of Income Generating Activities (IGA) and Livelihood Support Activities (LSA). There is no point in taking up the venture if there is no equity, democratic set up and women participation. This would be against the principle of participatory management.

Existing Common Stakes:

As stated above, common stakes are the most important aspect in the participative venture. If the stakes are high, it becomes a binding force for all the members, if not the disinterest shall be a detrimental factor and the required involvement of people may not be achieved. It has to be always kept in mind that the mantra for successful participatory management is the total involvement of the people in all aspects. There are certain common stakes in the common resource such as usufruct share of the forest produces, the non timber and medicinal plant products and all intangible benefits. Besides, the villagers also get employment generation and benefit from all new assets created as plantations and entry point activities. But the inherent problem of tragedy of commons exists in such common property resources (CPR) also known as CCR (Common Community Resources).

Another issue in enhancing quantum and quality of common pool resources is that, in most of the JFMC managed areas, the sites are mostly depleted and the new plantations will take a long time to yield products to a substantial scale. In the interim period, the wood products are very little. Even, after maturity also, the wood products shall not be able to play a big role in the socio-economy and village cannot thrive on the wood income. After all, man does not live by bread alone. Further, the EPAs are also limited ( to 5% of plantation Component) and benefit generated out of these assets shall not be much, most of the EPAs are in the form of waiting shed, Community Hall, Water Reservoir, Shingling of Roads etc. and does not have economic impact. So, overall impact of the JFMC on the socio economy of the village is not much and negligible. In order to get meaningful participation of all the villagers, it is very important that the stakes are raised and enhanced so that as many unemployed persons of the village are benefited from the venture. Stakes are not only dynamic and returning ones, but also are the value of the assets, by successful implementation of the main programme, they become managed stakes and once, they are managed stakes, it is enhanced from many angles. Hence, making CPR a managed stake is very important.

In India, the most important stakes are firewood and small timbers. But the area dedicated for firewood production is hardly 30% in a Microplan. The majority of the area goes for Agriculture, jhuming, waterhole reserves, village infrastructures etc. So, in a village having 200 ha of area (which is quite common), only 60 ha shall be earmarked for firewood production. The households in a village are fifty and the firewood available becomes inadequate. Here the issue of managing the deficit crops up. Unless, the deficit is managed, the chances of violating the principles by participants are very high. In certain cases, even subsidized arrangements are made for such deficit items, but in our forest resource management, this is yet to be introduced, at least temporarily till the growing stock becomes sustainable with the level of demands (of the villagers). Pulling in investments by establishing proper linkage with other sectors also shall be helpful here to offset the deficits. Once, stakes are enhanced this way, the participation shall be more meaningful and forthcoming.

As facilitator, the representative of the Government has to take a lead role and has to help the village committee to look for opportunities of creating new stakes. There are some easily identifiable avenues but many of such avenues shall be site specific and not common to all. So, the search for such avenues should start right from the beginning along with the PRA exercise. The possible areas are many such as (i) Enhancing Agricultural Productivity: Say, by introducing double cropping and by improving the productivity; (ii) promoting LSA and IGA: which are suitable to the concerned villagers; (iii) Creation of a corpus fund: for common purposes. Having SHG (Self Help Group) confined to forest based activities as cottage industries shall also help in stake enhancement and shall be good in sustainability. We have to bring in the change, from sustenance forestry to sustainable forestry. But these decisions are to be taken by the villagers as such decisions depend on the existing land use, community assets, unemployment, poverty, population etc. The facilitators such as the Government representatives and the non profit making Voluntary Agencies (third Sector) may join hands with the local people in this.

Another possibility of enhancing stakes of the villagers could be in the form of awards and incentives for successful plantation and protection. It is important to offset the overdependence on forests, but if the carrying capacity matches the demand, it is good to increase productivity of forests because if the demand can be met sustainably from forests, it healthy for the environment. So raising the growing stock of forest produce by creating plantations through local people is important. Here, some part of the creation money can be set aside and programme can be designed to facilitate such innovations.

Suppose, for successful plantations awards can be given at various stages such as at 5th year, 10th year and 15th years and this would encourage the villagers to protect the plantations till such stage and this would ensure the success. We can easily work out standard yardsticks for examining the conditions of community raised and protected assets at each stage for such incentives. This would ensure the Post Project sustenance (PPS), if there is no PPS, there is no point of taking up the venture, because managing CPR is not a five years affair. In good forests with good existing growing stock, the villagers may get returns (usufruct) after a few years (say four years). In highly degraded areas, the case would be different, the stake has to be build up and the yield will not come immediately within 5 (five) years of project period. Most of the projects whether NAP or other funding agencies are of 5 (five) years. So, after the project funding is over and financial support is withdrawn, then the JFMCs exist mostly in name. So, planning for post project sustenance of the JFMC is of utmost importance. Creating a good asset is also a good aspect of PPS in addition to LSA and IGA.

Conclusion: Let us remember that, the JFMCs were earlier called VFPC (village forest protection committee) and mandate is quite clear. Capacity building is also a means of enhancing the stake as the villagers can utilize their product for processing and marketing. By improving the capacity the villagers can tackle the problems of resource management better. We the salaried people are mostly with one livelihood activity, but the villagers cannot survive with one option only. Can a farmer live with his paddy alone? Man does not live by bread alone. He has to have his cow, he has to have his orchard, he has to have his cottage industry so that all his time is giving him some return. For all these items, and to optimize whatever resource he is managing, the capacity building is quite important, it will help rationalize and break Nash's equilibrium. Here, the third sector (non profit making organizations) can play important role.

The environmental safety should be the bye product of a sustainable livelihood; this has to be the philosophy; that way our forests and environment should get protected. It is not the value of the products that is important. I have seen many villages where in spite of best management techniques, the requirement of villagers cannot be met from the area they have stakes. So, what is important is the system that has evolved; the cyclic harvesting and equitable utilization to avoid the green apple plucking syndrome. We have to take the entire forest landscape across the country with us, a few hundred crores of rupees worth products can go to the people and if it can make the livelihood and environment sustainable, the return in terms of environmental service shall be worth millions of crores of rupees. We have to remember that the rural India is the life and soul of the nation.