DEVOLUTION OF FOREST MANAGEMENT - Vasundhara

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12representation of 3 women in the committee. The committee members agreed thatwomen have been included to abide by the JFM norms but the need for women’sparticipation had not been felt by the male leadership.Women have been included for name-sake only, while they do not play any role in thedecision making process of the committee. There have been instances when thewomen members have been asked to sign documents on matters that were discussed inmeetings, on a later date, even though they were not present in the meeting.The benefit distribution (amongst villagers) used to be equitable, but things havechanged of late and there is increasing appropriation of benefits by the elite. In the lastcleaning operation, the benefits were grabbed by the few influential people. During thegroup discussion the backward classes opined that their interim needs are not beingmet and are not getting attention in the forest protection and management.As far as the costs for forest protection is concerned, all the households contributeequally though not equitably. Each household contributes voluntary labour forpatrolling irrespective of the family’s financial condition and other constraints. In agroup discussion it was told that a widow of the village, who is really poor and isgiving money to her nephew to contribute free labour. This indicates there is lackconsideration for poor and old aged widow those struggle to lead a just life.In the other hand the committee has not put any restriction on NTFP gatherersespecially KL pluckers from near by villagers have access to the protected forest. Suchan egalitarian approach has been taken keeping in view the economic conditions ofNTFP gatherers, for whom it is a critical source of livelihood during lean season3.5 ROLE OF THE FOREST DEPARTMENTSuruguda has been projected and highlighted as the success story of JFM by the ForestDepartment. At the initial stage of JFM process, FD had been very supportive. Whensome Agharia men were caught felling trees in the initial stage of forest protection, thethen protecting group (harijan pada) was completely supported by the FD in theirdecision to penalise the offenders. This definitely strengthened the forest protectionprocess. Gradually the support of FD declined over the period of time. The FD hadalso failed to play any role in the case of equity issue, cropping up in the village.Rather it had added to the tensions by siding away with the influential group.Again in 1989 the FD helped them in forming the Village Forest Protection Committeein tune with the JFM Policy resolution brought about in the year 1988.Presently the Forest Range Officer has a positive image among the villagers, whilevillages lament insufficient support from the Section Forester.It is interesting to note that the Forest Department has also helped the aghariaconsolidate the position of prominence in the Forest Management system.In this context, the following incident is significant which was revealed during thegroup discussion.
13A person from Harijan community was charged with a fine for cutting some tree, hepaid half the penalty amount and promised to give the balance after some time. Ongetting this news, the forester again fined that person despite the fact that thecommittee had already resolved the case. Also the committee did not put any objectionin this regard. While in several cases, when Agharia are involved the offender is let offrelatively easily.In Suruguda, the FD prepared a micro-plan for management of forests but this was notdone in a participatory fashion. This could be judged from the following instance.When we discussed with people we found that most of the villagers were not evenaware of such a micro-plan. The activities planned in this micro-plan were notexecuted. There was no effective involvement of village people for preparation of themicro-plan. The Forest Department is yet to internalise the concept of participatoryforest management and effectively involve village community in management offorests.3.6 FOREST AND LOCAL LIVELIHOODSForests play an important role in the livelihood of the people of Suruguda though therehas been a reduction in the extent of dependency over time.In Suruguda village, Agharia and Bhuians are the major landholders.The landless are especially dependent on forests for a variety of products both forsubsistence and sale. The households in the village were categorised into rich,medium, poor and very poor according to wealth status based on wealth ranking. Thelivelihood sources of these sub-groups are as follows:Sub-groups Livelihood sources(prioritised as per theincome derived fromthe respective sources)RichAgricultureServiceBusinessMedium Agriculture/ServiceSmall BusinessPoorLabourVery poor -Caste wise categorisation of differentsub-groups identified on the basis ofwealth ranking is given in table 2. Thedetailed criteria for wealth rankingarrived through sub-group discussion inthe village is given as annexure 1.Degradation of forest led to changes inthe livelihood pattern of the people,particularly the landless e.g. the Harijanpeople had to abandon head-loading andfuelwood selling and had to opt to workas manual labourers elsewhere which has become their primery source of income.With the regeneration of forests the availability of forest produces has increased andcontributing to their livelihood. Women play a greater role in collection processingand disposal of NTFPs. Some of the NTFPs are disposed at the doorstep, speciallythrough barter items like Sargi seeds Mahul are taken to market. However Kendu leafand Mahua fetch the people cash benefit. In all there activities women play a key roleand they have fair amount of control over this income. It ought to be added here thatMahua and Char contributes to the poor household in lean period where there is noother options are available.(please refer the following table )
Page 1 and 2: 1DEVOLUTION OFFOREST MANAGEMENTCrea
Page 3 and 4: 32.0 Background of Suruguda Village
Page 5 and 6: 52.5 Forest Resource of the village
Page 7 and 8: 7they depended on the Amari branche
Page 9 and 10: 9attend the general body meeting. U
Page 11: 11According to the villagers, no se
Page 15 and 16: Income from selling NTFPs and wages
Page 17 and 18: 174.1 CASE ANALYSIS/ SPECIAL FEATUR
Page 19 and 20: 192. Prohibition of carrying cuttin
Page 21: 21Annexure 1Representation of membe
Page 24 and 25: 24Period Constitutional Rules Opera
Page 26 and 27: 26Annexure 3Matrix Scoring of Cash
Page 28 and 29: 28CategoryRichMediumIndicatorsAnnex
Page 30 and 31: 30Annexure 8Position of different C
Page 32 and 33: 32Sl.NoNTFPsIncome(Cash/barter)OurC

DEVOLUTION OF FOREST MANAGEMENT - Vasundhara

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