Is Joint Forest Planning and Management Truly Joint? Understanding the Governance Question

Abstract

This paper questions the true nature of the concept of ‘Joint’ in the Joint Forest Management programmes. Are Joint Forest Management programmes truly joint? A case study in a village in Shimoga district of Karnataka state suggests that ‘joint’ nature of the Joint Forest Planning and Management is only on papers and it is the experts or the concerned forest officials who call the shots, whether it is in planning or management (governance) of forests. The nature of joint which is supposed to be horizontal in nature is not truly so, it is more of a vertical relationship between the Forest Department at the top and the forest dependent communities at the bottom. At all the stages of implementation of the programme, it is the forest officials who have the upper hand, due to their ‘technical/scientific’ expertise, contrary to the idea that the traditional knowledge of the forest dependent communities needs to be utilized for the maximum benefit of the programme. The existing pattern has created a situation wherein the forest dependent communities are reduced to being mere beneficiaries instead of equal stakeholders/governors of the forest resources. The paper traces how such conditions can lead to disinterest among the forest dependent communities in managing forests and how it affects the governance and finally, conservation of forests.