Abstract
The emergence and diffusion of community-based forest management (CBFM) in India over the past several decades has been of interest to scholars and natural resource managers alike. The prevailing view in the existing academic literature presupposes that CBFM arose spontaneously in individual villages, evolving into a grassroots movement that spread across districts and states. Previous studies of the phenomenon have focused on the micro-level (individual or community) and macro-level (national or global) factors that gave rise to CBFM; the role of meso-level (organizational) conditions in facilitating the rise and spread of CBFM has garnered significantly less attention. This study presents the results of structured interviews with key informants in 345 villages throughout the district of Boudh in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Results suggest that meso-level conditions were vitally important in the development of CBFM. Nongovernmental organizations and the Indian Forest Department promoted CBFM and facilitated networking and sharing across villages, while informal networks between the villages expedited the diffusion of the new management model. The study also discusses the interaction between various meso, micro, and macro level facilitating conditions and concludes that the dynamics of CBFM in Odisha and in India more generally are significantly more complex than has previously been supposed.
Highlights
This paper investigates the emergence and diffusion of community-based forest management (CBFM) in the villages of Boduh district in the eastern Indian state of Odisha
CBFM refers to a broad range of strategies and practices for the management of forests, agroforests, and forest resources by local communities and small-holders; in India, approaches to CBFM vary according to local needs and customs, but generally involve detailed rules for the use of forests negotiated among members of locally established management organizations, representatives of local government and resource management agencies, and neighboring communities (Nayak, 2008)
Macro-level structures—including the failure of the state to effectively management forests and population growth—and micro-level factors, such as the shortage of wood for use as fuel or for making agricultural implements, undoubtedly played a role in the development of CBFM, the findings suggest that meso-level conditions present in the study area were a critical condition, and one that has been largely overlooked and under-analyzed in the existing literature
Summary
This paper investigates the emergence and diffusion of community-based forest management (CBFM) in the villages of Boduh district in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The primary drivers of deforestation in India in general and Odisha in particular include population pressure and the resulting loss of forest land for agriculture, fuelwood, and fodder; conversion of forest land for major development projects, such as irrigation infrastructure and reservoirs, roads, railroads, hydroelectric dams and other power plants, mines and quarries, and resettlement projects, among others; overexploitation of timber resources to supply raw material for paper and pulp industries, construction, fuelwood, and other uses; unregulated grazing by domestic livestock; changing patterns of agricultural cultivation; and degradation of forests from fire and pests (Kashyap, 1990) Underlying these proximate drivers, some observers have identified the extension of state control over forest land by means of restrictive forestry policies and the hegemony of the powerful forest department as the ultimate driver of deforestation. This paper seeks to identify the main conditions at the macro, meso, and micro levels that facilitated the emergence and diffusion of CBFM in Odisha
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