FOREST POLICIES AND DECISION-MAKING IN INDIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Analysis of efforts to insert social policy into forest policy in India raises questions about what forestry is, and about what and whom it is for, as well as questions about what policy is. A focus on decision-making may help us understand the political dimensions of forestry, since decisions are key moments at which someone or something is favoured against alternatives. Forest policy makers' decision-making processes are analysed and illustrated here by looking at two influential policy reforms in Indian forestry. One, known as Social Forestry, has extended the forest administration's remit to introduce silviculture to farmland and commons, but has been diverted from its ‘social’ objectives. The other, Joint Forest Management (JFM), has brought multiple dimensions of rural development policy to bear on the traditionally discrete domain of forest administration. Analysis illustrates the importance of looking beyond explicit policy objectives to examine implicit policy and to discern the analysis of problems and causes on which both explicit and implicit policy are based, and the criteria used for assessing performance and results. A matrix for policy analysis is offered as an analytical tool for systematic use of these distinctions.