Experiences of Partnership With Rural Community in Managing Forest Resources

Abstract

Participation is a dominant concept governing institutional planning, globally. But literature review reveals that the outcome of participation has been variable in various settings leading to a belief that there exists a gap between what is written about participation and what happens, in reality. The study adopts a case study approach and focusses on a case of community forest management and planning from the state of West Bengal, India. This state has been the cradle of a number of decentralization initiatives. Following the tenets of behavioural geography, the study tries to understand the behaviour of the stakeholders in participation in the planning process, the factors affecting it, and the nature of engagement process. The study concludes that the level of local participation not only on the willingness of the formal institutions convening participation but also on the understanding of the community of the socio-economic and political processes affecting them, accessibility to resources like information, education, government training programmes, etc.