Community Management of Common Property Resources (CPR)

Introduction
Van Panchayats in India
Government initiative for involving communities in management of CPR
Community led initiatives
Factors supporting Common property regimes management by community

Introduction

In India, communal forest use and preservation have a long history. The sacred groves are arguably the oldest examples. They represent the strategy used by indigenous groups to save the forest areas on which they rely for a number of ecological functions. Local forests have long been conserved by many communities. Uncultivated areas were designated as common lands in colonial revenue systems, which often included grazing and forest grounds. The logic and necessity of local governance and administration of forests were acknowledged even at the time the Indian Forest Act (1927) was passed, as evidenced by the provision for village woods in Section 28 of the Act. The clause was, however, applied too sporadically to be of any use to regional communities. There are still a few traditional and native institutions in place for managing commons. These include community forestry, gramya jungles, and van (forest) panchayats. The Indian government has also established new CPR management organisations and guidelines.

Van Panchayats in India

The Village Forest Councils, or Van Panchayats, of Uttarakhand are distinctive examples of community-managed forest institutions. The colonial administration of the time, which is now the State of Uttarakhand, forcibly seized all non-private property and woods in the region known at the time as the "United Provinces" in the 1890s. As a result, the mountain settlements lost access to the forested areas on which they relied significantly. The ensuing disenfranchisement sparked protracted and extensive demonstrations from the populace, and some locals even set significant swaths of woodland on fire.

The Kumaon Grievances Committee was established by the British government in an effort to settle the dispute, and it was this committee that, in 1931, published the first "Kumaon Panchayat Forest Rules," allowing mountain villages to own and manage their own woods. The management of the timber and resin in these areas remained under the supervision of the central forest department, but the villagers got a portion of the sales proceeds. Even after the majority of these village councils stopped operating, new Van Panchayats kept being created. Up to this point, Uttarakhand has established over 12,000 Van Panchayats. The Forest Panchayat Rules, the only set of rules of its sort in India, are still in effect for them. Rules were altered, though, in 1971, 1976, and 2001. In 2005, the last modification was done.

Van Panchayats have established a wide variety of laws and ordinances that have changed over time in response to local conditions. The majority of villagers have stated that they believe their forests are well managed and are distributed fairly in areas where elections for village bodies are held in a transparent way. Encroachment and illegal felling have become a serious issue, though, as forest resources are becoming more scarce in parts of the region and there is fierce competition among village panchayats for access to forest products. If the early cases go unpunished, the issue gets worse. All prosperous Van Panchayats employ guards (paid in grain or cash), or households alternate taking turns providing security. Smaller panchayats find it difficult to stop theft, open grazing, and encroachment since they cannot afford to support a guard.

Van Panchayats' ability to enforce their laws has been weakened over time as a result of repeated adjustments to the regulations resulting from the Forest Panchayat Act and changes in how they are understood and administered. In the state of Odisha, gramya jungles are designated village forests institutions. Within the boundaries of the village, these are made up of village forests that are managed for social and economic development. In various regions of the nation, other long-standing indigenous community institutions have developed to manage trees. Common property includes places like Mundari Khuntkatti in Chotanagpur, native Community Forest Management in Odisha and Maharashtra, sacred woods like Devara Kaadus and Gunda Thopus in Karnataka, and similar organisations in many other states.

According to Bon (2000), Panchayats owned meadows, wastelands, portions of the forests around settlements, river beds, irrigation channels, and common routes in Himachal Pradesh until about 1974. (village government). They were utilised by the village for collective good or for essential functions. The Punjab Village Common Lands Regulation Act of 1961 designated these regions as shamlat or shamilat-deh. The shamlat was a shared resource owned by the entire village and was not amenable to privatisation or alienation as a result of individual decision-making.

The Himachal Pradesh Village Common Land Vesting and Utilisation Act was passed in 1974 as a result of a desire by the national government in the 1970s to manage pasturelands for afforestation. Except for "lands subject to division between individual cosharers before the date of commencement of this Act," this Act transferred ownership of common lands from the Panchayats to the State government.

This led to a rise in interest in dividing up land for private gain. Farmers made use of this Act's provision to gain access to the commons that the Act nationalised for their own personal gain. The initial division of grazing grounds took the form of encroachments, which political authorities eventually authorised in the 1980s. The cattle herders were forced to graze in the forests rather than on communal grazing fields since privatised grasslands were turned into cultivations. The result was further forest degradation. In Maharashtra, protected areas comprised the village's common grazing pastures. Herders were compelled to find new grazing grounds as a result. Pastoralists and forest officials fought as they attempted to enter their customary grazing regions when options were unavailable.

Different strategies for more equitable CPR management have been tested. Many different approaches to implementing participatory management of commons have been tried by succeeding administrations. The following parts go through the important projects.

Government initiative for involving communities in management of CPR

Joint Forest Management Committee

The Government of India uses Joint Forest Management (JFM) as a strategy to protect forests while fostering community growth. The justification for JFM is that the previous method of state-level government control of forests placed the burden of preservation and management on the staff of the forest department while excluding the local people. Additionally, forests were used for other purposes at the same time. In the 1970s and 1980s, increased population pressure caused forests to deteriorate and disappear more quickly, as was noted in the first State of Forest Report, which was released in 1987. The influence on forest cover was noted in the report. The National Forest Policy of 1988, which established the programme, called on state forest departments to assist local forest dwellers and fringe communities in managing and protecting their local forests as well as sharing in the expenses and rewards associated with doing so. Local communities play a crucial role in managing and protecting forests, according to the National Forest Policy of 1988. As a result, on June 1st, 1990, the JFM Circular was issued. This was followed by the 2000 and 2002 guidelines, which established the foundation for JFM.

A Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) is a completely or partially integrated member of the Gram Sabha and is a democratic, decentralised, and transparent local institution comprising communities living in or near forests. It is configured in accordance with the state-specific JFM rules and recommendations. Similar to JFMCs, an Eco-Development Committee (EDC) is designed for the settlements within Protected Areas and their surrounding areas. Users have a secure claim to the benefits of forest use, which often strengthens their position. This, however, is not always the case. For instance, a JFM arrangement may formalise earlier de facto agreements that allocated resources among the parties in an unfair manner. Or, it might cause those who benefited from earlier informal agreements to lose out. The new arrangements have frequently left marginalised groups worse off. In light of the caste and class dynamics that exist in Indian communities as well as gender-related issues, concerns have also been raised about how consistent and equal the interventions are.

The communities form a JFM Committee under the direction of forest officials to manage and safeguard the local woods. The main component of JFM is that communities have the authority to control how their members use the forests and to keep outsiders out. Members receive direct access to, control over, and a portion of the proceeds from most NTFPs, as well as other intangible advantages from local ecosystem services like water recharging, pollination, wildlife habitat, etc. JFM Committees manage their woods to provide for local environmental demands as well as subsistence and livelihood needs. West Bengal was the site of the first JFM experiments. They were successful because they interacted with the locals and made promises of both short-term alternative revenue and long-term ownership of the timber.

The West Bengal Village Protection Committees (VPCs) were established in a region where the majority of the land had previously been a mixed forest with sal (Shorea robusta) as its dominant species. This area had been significantly affected by massive logging and, more recently, plantations. In their protected forest area, participating villagers were given priority access to minor forest products (sal and tendu leaves). Then, their benefits were increased by one-fourth of the income from Sal stem and timber. In exchange for a significantly larger portion of the eventual revenue from the resource, the VPC members assumed responsibility for the majority of resource preservation and harvesting control. The number of VPCs increased to 2300 by 1992. 3,20,000 hectares of forest were covered by their obligations. The composition and operation of the committees were first heavily influenced by the forest department and local political figures.

The establishment of village boundaries and disputes over preventing outsiders from accessing resources were significant issues. Determining the type of produce that could be gotten from forests without sal was another problem. These emphasised the necessity of efficient microplanning. Mixed working groups made up of members of the forest department, NGOs, and researchers helped to significantly solve the challenges. However, JFM has mainly failed in other regions to give local residents access to non-timber forest products. Overall, Panchayati Raj Institutions have demonstrated a limited capacity to oversee and develop common lands and prioritise the use of MGNREGA and other development monies for commons restoration and conservation. These have occasionally clashed with community-led efforts. However, the JFM experience has already led to a great deal of adaptation and change, most of which have been in the appropriate directions. Additionally, there are indications that the organisational culture inside forest departments is adapting to the guiding concepts and methodology.

Social forestry village woodlots

One of India's greatest initiatives, intended to boost local collective management and improve the production of forest products on communal lands, was started in the 1980s. This was accomplished through a scheme of jointly owned woodlots set up under Social Forestry Plans and Projects. In order to lessen the pressure on production forests brought on by expanding rural demand for firewood, grazing, and other forest products, the National Commission of Agriculture advocated growing trees on land that was accessible to village residents in a 1976 report. As a result, social forestry was born. To accomplish the goals, woodlots were to be established on non-arable communal land. These woodlots would be collectively managed by the user community through the panchayat system. Beginning in the majority of states in the early 1980s, the programme quickly grew. In the drier plain regions of the country, the woodlots were mostly developed on village common lands and other uncultivated government properties (such as revenue lands) made available to residents for communal use. After clearing the ancient forests, plantations were forcibly established, even in sacred groves.

For the acquisition of land for the landless, there was a lot of campaigning in the 1990s. The rural poor were given a large portion of the cultivable common land during this process, as well as non-cultivable land, through land allocations and even encroachment. The remaining common lands are overworked and of low production. Despite significant regional variations, communal lands have generally been reduced to small areas, with 20 hectares or less per village, and are heavily degraded and used for open access. As a result, there is a lack of plantable land for Social Forestry programmes in numerous states. Another effect has been that a community's available woodlot area is frequently too limited to make a major contribution to local requirements. The village lands intended for planting were frequently transferred into the temporary control of that department for this purpose, and the woodlots were typically established by the state forest departments. Even though it was planned that the panchayat or another community-level organisation would be involved in the development of the woodlot, it was frequently not done so. These organisations were expected to assume management duties in accordance with the forest department's rules and a management plan created in partnership with the latter. The community and the forest department were to split the benefits.

The programmes produced tree plantations under the supervision of the forest department. Along with a few intermediary items, such fuelwood and grass that were previously gathered from the lands and consumed by the inhabitants, the wood products would be sold. The majority of the time, it was seen that the panchayat and village bodies viewed the Social Forestry woodlots primarily as a large source of communal money rather than as a source of output to meet local requirements. Due of this, auctioning the production is typically preferred to selling it to the community at a discount or giving it away for nothing. The majority of the time, the creation of wage jobs, frequently on a large scale, has been advantageous to the poor community.

Despite the fact that many of the woodlots have been around for a while, the panchayats have been reluctant to take over management because of financial issues, a lack of accountability, and unclear management criteria. The involvement and meddling of the forest department supported the extension of its management by discouraging local bodies from taking over the management of woodlots. Transfer agreements frequently gave forest departments the power to get heavily involved, to exert dominating control, and to keep a sizable portion of the profits. As a result, forest departments frequently find it difficult to relinquish effective authority, especially in light of pressure to reach high Social Forestry planting goals. Similar to the JFM programme, the majority of these issues are the result of a lack of communication between villager groups and forest agencies over the goals and arrangements for the woodlots. Even the villagers and panchayat authorities frequently are not informed about the transfer of a woodlot to them or the repercussions of such a transfer.

A legal grey area has also been detrimental to the programme. Initiatives including social forestry have been deemed legally suspect in several places. Use of property where the growth of trees is restricted by law is one illustration. Thousands of woodlots were created as a result of the programme, but joint management initiatives within the forest became the main focus of support for jointly managed forestry in India rather than woodlots outside the forest.

MGNREGA

A labour and social security law known as the "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act" (or, MGNREGA) aims to guarantee the "right to work." Its goal is to increase the livelihood stability in rural areas by offering every household with adult members who volunteer to perform unskilled manual labour at least 100 days of pay employment in a fiscal year.

All projects that are "related to common property resources (such as pasture lands, village woodlots, and village wells), preventing natural hazards, recharging groundwater, as well as all those activities which are of interest to the majority of households in the habitation, and the benefits from these projects can impact the poor in the habitation" are eligible for funding under the MGNREGA. The Act can be efficiently employed to give rural populations temporary jobs, and the work they conduct can help ensure the long-term viability of the region's natural resources. MGNAREGA's genuine implementation has been fraught with issues, but it has the potential to be a workable option for organising and funding community-based CPR management.

Community led initiatives

Baripada

The Forest Protection Committee (Van Suraksha Samiti) in Baripada, a village in Maharashtra south-east of the Satpura range, was founded in 1991 to protect the area's about 445 hectares of forest. The committee's main goal was to restore the water table and forest cover in the area surrounding the settlement. A third of the 35 wells have dried up as a result of excessive teak harvesting. The Committee established tight guidelines. It addressed the issue of illicit tree cutting, controlled the use of forest products, constructed bunds to prevent soil erosion, and planted thousands of mahua and mango saplings across the hamlet. As a result, the ground water table significantly increased and the undergrowth of the forest became luxuriant. The tribal groups of Kokani and Beel in Baripada have historically practised conventional farming methods. They conducted successful experiments with numerous fruit and berry plants. A community may successfully mobilise and work together to develop a sustainable way of life, as demonstrated by Baripada. By doing this, it has revived the standard agroforestry techniques from earlier times.

Factors supporting Common property regimes management by community

A database on common lands and water resources needs to be created, and information systems need to be strengthened. Additionally, it is necessary to evaluate the quantity and condition of resources that are regarded as common pools. A fifth of India's total land area, or between 45 to 60 million hectares, is thought to be made up of common and public areas. Such land, if brought under the purview of local self-governance institutions, could significantly contribute to the rural economy and provide crucial ecological services in addition to meeting the diverse needs of the local communities, such as providing fodder, food, medicine, firewood, etc., which will deliver significant benefits to a large portion of the rural populations in an equitable manner.

Communities are more likely to effectively manage their CPR resources in areas where there is a developing shortage of natural resources and other services that are valuable to the users. A community may feel pressured to defend its own interests in natural resources as a result of increased demand on resources from outside agencies, mining, dam construction, and forest harvesting. Both leadership and assistance from nonprofit groups are necessary for collective action. Legal provisions can frequently be utilised by the community effectively with the right direction. There should be an enabling environment within government agencies to let community initiatives to function for the objectives they were designed for since government entities frequently feel threatened and challenged by community management.