People can grow trees on their private lands, fallow lands, and field bunds to fulfil their fodder, fuel and ..... framework. For example, a Kisan nursery under any ...
2004 revised in 2012
Success and Failures in Community Forestry Lessons from Large Scale Community Forestry Project. India. [This paper observes some of the factors influencing community forestry programs in general and how they perform over the years. These experiences may be region specific, largely drawn from the author’s experiences while working with Sadguru Foundation over 6 years in Gujarat & Rajasthan in late 90s. Nevertheless, the experiences are analyzed in wider context and some critical factors are probed at length to understand the dynamics in large scale projects.]
J Ravi Shanker
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Note: The Study is based on earlier version originally published in 2004 and is republished in 2012 is an independent work of the author and is wholly responsible for all content there in. Except some layout changes, the entire study and narration is incorporated as it is. Author has taken some amount of liberty in interpretation based on his own experiences in promoting community forestry.
Author J Ravi Shanker is a specialist in social development and NGO management in developing countries. With a Master’s degree in Social Work from M.S. University, India and carrier enhancement course in Rural Development Management from Reading University, UK he has keen interest in development research. He held various key positions in reputed organization in India and also worked as as international consultant, specialist, with various organizations in India and overseas. He worked closely with populations in western India, extensively travelled to various countries on consulting, fund raising and research assignments. His hands on experience in handling large scale projects and programs and in depth understanding on social capital formation, livelihood enhancement resulted in betterment of thousands of families living in poverty. He published several training manuals and trained thousands of professionals in NGO management and development.
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Contents: Introduction Importance of Agro- forestry in absence of (access to) state forests Type of management practices and approaches that sustain farm/agro forestry Patterns of plantations Intensity / scale of tree cropping Meeting contingencies through Agro/farm forestry Market forces and household strategies Suitability of the programme People’s choice for tree plantation How subsidies fail and when they work Why many tree grower societies failed and how Hurdles in promoting community forestry Deceptive targets & poor quality Role of Extension Trainings in community forestry Data Base & Monitoring
3 INTRODUCTION The overall increase in private tree management can be attributed to increased population as it is widely observed in almost all-indigenous communities world over. Farmers as a strategy adopt increased tree plantation on farm bunds, wastelands, stream banks, and other fallow lands, which were otherwise used for low productive cropping. This transformation in tree cropping postulates against population increase and sub-division of land among generations. In addition, increased need for cash on hand in crisis is apparent in dry tropical countries (Chambers 1998). With the advent of watershed programmes in many parts of Africa and south Asia in early 90s this practice is further established. Under integrated treatment models, plants have secured a significant position on field bunds and fallow lands.
In this context, it is inevitable to draw some lessons from past experiences of successful projects and study why and how they succeeded and / or failed. This paper observes some of the factors influencing community forestry programmes in general and how they perform over the years. These experiences may be region specific, largely drawn from the author’s experiences while working with Sadguru Foundation (one of the largest NGOs in India working in the field of Natural Resource Management) over 3 decades in Gujarat & Rajasthan. Nevertheless, the experiences are analysed in wider context and some critical areas are probed at length to understand the dynamics in large scale project execution and its implications on society and its resource base.
Scope for agro forestry practices are largely influenced by traditional tree cropping practices of the community, their needs and changing demand for wood and its byproducts. Availability of grants, subsidies or loans besides ongoing other tree plantation schemes of state, central governments can also influence this practice. Nature and condition of land and other resources are however basic preconditions. Adding to this, the promoting agency’s ‘internal policies and approaches1’ also influence the program success. In any successful agro forestry program, such factors generally assessed and incorporated into programme design and implementation. There are however other external factors like markets, availability of resources, favourable attitude to forestry, working plans of promoting department or authority etc., can also influence the success. 1
Level of importance attributed by concerned organization to forestry programs in its annual plans.
4 They are largely governed by external environment and have equal bearing on program uptake. An attempt is made to understand some of these elements while learning how certain agencies are more successful than others in promoting forestry.
1. Importance of Agro- forestry in absence of (access to) state forests:
People in general are dependent on the neighbourhood forest resources of their residence for a living. This has, over the years-accumulated greater complexity with deterioration of forest resources, changing political priorities and unfazed imperialistic forest policies. Gujarat and Rajasthan are the two states that are perennially scarce in forest resources. Degradation of the resource system, linear accesses and active role of vested interests constantly kept poor people away from forest resource. For example in some degraded forest lands of Gujarat, the root stock of some perennial trees and shrubs also removed. There is absolute ‘0’ canopy cover in the so called ‘forest’ lands. It would roughly take 50 years to establish these forests again if one sincerely puts ones efforts.
In absence of access to remaining forest resources and complete degradation of existing forest lands, agro forestry and farm forestry gained popularity as alternative. People can grow trees on their private lands, fallow lands, and field bunds to fulfil their fodder, fuel and related needs. It is found that, when forestry programmes implemented on these models with simple management practices, they have succeeded. The only ‘thumb rule’ worked here is timely management of resources and rigorous follow-up by implementing agency. Agro and Farm forestry programme promoted by SWDF: 1995-2001
Agro-forestry represents multi storied and multi-species compound farms, where tree/crop mixtures can represent important components of the overall farming system and micor-catchment. Site location and specifications largely allow certain plants to establish. It is important to know the type of species that co-exists well with other varieties under agro forestry pattern. In Sadguru, the forestry sector intervention started with private forestry plantations, where people in large scale planted trees on their private wastelands, fallow lands,
5 field bunds and along the nallas (rivulets) during food for work program in mid 70s. Communities were hesitant to plant saplings as they thought the land would be taken by NGO when the plants grown up. However with educational camps the NGO succeeded in convincing people that the no one could take the trees from them without their consent and they own it. The NGO has not initiated afforestation with state lands, or other common lands as a strategy. The reasons were apparent. Access to state owned forest lands was next to impossible and common lands of village under local government were by and large encroached. With high rate of success (60-70% survival rates) on private lands, communities realised that forestry is possible and beneficial if monitored properly. Later it was realized that once people saw results they were ready to deal with complexities of common lands and degraded forest lands.
2. What type of management practices and approaches sustain farm/agro forestry.
One of the main objectives behind every social forestry programme is to offset the excessive deforestation and resultant environmental damage in neighbourhoods.
Second assumption was to meet the basic self-sufficiency needs (fuel, fodder, timber etc.) of poor at minimum cost contributions from people.
Third was to improve the small farm productivity and stabilise income to meet contingencies.
It is important to study how far these assumptions are fulfilled? To what extent these assumptions hold truth? Then why most of the community forestry programmes failed? Is it a management approach issue or issue of people’s involvement (rather lack of it)? Is it time to liberalise forestry sector and invite greater community participation or private sector participation? When soil conservation and irrigation are opened up for community management with clear institutional guidelines and administrative sanctioning; why forestry sector is still holding back to its police/control/protected roles? Why programs like Joint Forest Management have not succeeded like irrigation management or watershed management? Answering some of the above questions, one has to analyse the factors that influenced the programmes in different parts of the country. The most striking ones are the administrative apathy in establishing a positive relation between programme
6 and people, negligible stake of people in benefits and overwhelming focus on conversion of natural forests to timber forests.
Experts in India attribute excessive deforestation to increasing firewood and fodder demand of rural/tribal populations. Intensive firewood and fodder plantations under social forestry programme witnessed during 80s. Social forestry program by mid 90 ended with mixed results. Except few cases in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat by and large the program was quite unimpressive. A study in Gujarat found that 56% of energy needs in rural areas are met from firewood collected from “open forests” (GEC 2000). These are forest lands having less than 10% canopy cover and largely termed as scrub forests invaded by Prosopis Juliflora weed. This clearly suggests that poor are not responsible for degradation of forests as believed in India.
The social forestry program of Sadguru demonstrated over the years that people contribute to forestry projects once they are convinced about the benefits. However the mechanism for contribution should be derived out of prevailing local practices. Secondly while calculating the contribution and executing the mechanism should be done in consultation with people as per their convenience. Failing which, the program would never succeed. This we would discuss in detail at a later stage.
Rehabilitation of common pool resources and evolving new common property regimes replaced by private plantations on field bunds; fallow lands with a potential to re-establish better than plantation on commons.
Sincere efforts by administration to generate political will needed to strengthen programs like Joint Forest Management that can be pro-poor initiative.
A state should take all needed measures to execute all GRs/Circulars (government order) that promote afforestation and community initiatives like JFM. Nonimplementation of GRs issued to incorporate degraded forest lands in watershed plans and then develop it is one example of state’s apathy in this sector. Historically forest department of India kept its gates closed for any policy directive that suggests access to poor who depend on this resource. Albeit it is unfair not to say that the department parted away with huge forest land mass under various Courts directives.
7 What Sadguru has done over the years is interesting! It has incorporated flexibility in programs to improve its effectiveness. Initiated as a ‘free seedling distribution’ in 1982, the programme has witnessed major changes. Other components of forestry incorporated into it. This has improved the survival rate of plantation. Species composition changed with changing needs of people.
What generally lead to failure of social forestry has been carefully avoided by Sadguru. For example, in Karnataka farm forestry project (1980s), quality of plantations found poor. Some of the reasons expressed here refer to, ‘unavailability of species they (communities) need, pressure to take more seedlings than they can plant, late plantation, insufficient site preparation and after plantation care’. Apart from this farmers needed plants in small quantities in different years rather all in one year. This kind of operational weaknesses in the programme results to poor impact. On the other hand need assessment, supply of species as per people’s choice and requirement, availability of plants in village, pre-plantation works, post plantation care and constant follow-up & monitoring resulted in high survival rates of saplings in Sadguru’s program. Sadguru having worked constantly with communities know their needs and also their locally employed staff had good tuning with communities. Implementing agencies should work closely with communities while planning for any program and incorporate their ideas and convenience into program module. If this is not happening, then one may force communities to take samplings or provide them in wrong season which ultimately perish.
3. Patterns of plantations :
There are three types of plantations by and large one can find in agro forestry model of Sadguru. One is Small timber that is promoted as fallow land plantation. Second is firewood and fodder plantation generally taken on field bunds. The third one is fruit corps largely planted as homestead so that they can be well protected against grazing and theft (younger plants and crop of matured plants). As they need initial watering under dry land-farming, people prefer them nearer to houses so that domestic water can be diverted. Small timber and other plant varieties are promoted
8 along field bunds, contours and in blocks on fallow lands and private wastelands. Regular and anticipated hospitalisation, marriage, festivals, litigation, debts, housing, jewellery, purchase of calf’s, small trading etc., is part of agro forestry network in household economy. Here plantations largely are of short duration, relatively high value, and easily disposable varieties.
Apart from this, the planting stocks are ensured as non-grazing varieties when they are far from settlements. Eucalyptus dominates among other tree species in preference either by women or men till year 2000. However when families’ timber needs were fulfilled they prefer horticulture/fruit crops as next option. Land being most scarce resource here (average household owns less than 2 acres land) smallest portion is also planted with different types of trees. Chart showing % of species raised in 4 phases.
60
Small timber
50 Fire wood and others
40 30
Fruit varieties
20 10 0
82-86
87-90
91-96
97-2000
Based on a study conducted by the author in year 2000 it was evident that people used the small timber varieties largely for house construction and renovation. House is an important asset class in tribal communities. Renovation of house remains high priority goal in everyone’s life. Nuclear family culture has caught the fancy of tribal families too. They started building separate houses once married. Energy and fodder plantations were able to fulfil those needs without depending on forests. Families self-sufficient in these areas were able to allocate portion of their land for fruit varieties. These plantations extended from homestead to farm lands on a greater scale in the successive years. Hence it is the timing of the program that should match with changing needs of community.
9 Sample villages
10
% tree cover in the village
% households own trees 5OO
32
53
Average cost Range of new % of Fuel of wood sold and wood self in Rs. renovated sufficiency houses* 100 000
8 – 130
85
* In some villages more than 200 houses renovated or newly constructed 4. Intensity / scale of tree cropping:
In any given village net returns from the asset/occupation (agriculture) have reduces at household level as
consumption levels are increased with changing economy. Families are
increasingly looking for alternatives to increase their productivity from the
available sources and opportunities. Under these circumstances, in tropical dry lands or hilly lands people either look forward to income from migration (best choice for skilled) or other productive activities within the village.
To maintain supplies of tree products like firewood, small timber, lumber etc. To meet growing demand for tree products like leafs, fruits, bark etc. To help maintain increased agricultural productivity in monitory terms To reduce risk in drought and manage household economy.
People Plant Trees….
Analysing the factors influencing large scale forestry uptake - limited access to forestland and degradation of other commons influenced people to readily adopt intensive tree cropping on farm lands and slopes. On the other hand frequent droughts and risk of crop failure also motivated farmers to shift to forestry species that are resistant to drought-that need less water and regenerate after browsing by animals. The ‘80s study in Kenya (Bradley etals ’85,91) found that dense population associated with more not few trees. Smaller the farms, so the denser were trees per unit area. As farm size became smaller with increasing population density, the proportion of the farm devoted to tree management increases.
10 Instead of increasing fuel wood deficit and land degradation following rapid population growth, Kenyan farmers seem to apply wise and sustainable management practices, including tree growing (Holmgren etal, 1994). Michael Arnold and Peter Dewees (1998) divided them in 4 sets of reasons.
A household who owns about 2 acres of land could easily plants 500 to 1000 trees along field bunds in hilly areas. Apart from this they would also come forward to take up horticulture in additional ½ acre of land. Farmers opined that substantial plantations could only meet the increasing needs of the family.
It is also observed that farmers consider parameters like recommended spacing between plants etc., based on their experience and not expert advice.
Teakwood at Dahod costs Rs.800 (per cubic feet) in a registered saw mill and the same will cost Rs. 500 (per cubic feet) at Godhra hat is closer to Reserved Forest. The same teakwood costs anywhere around 1500 to 2700 in registered timber depot in Ahmedabad city located at 150 km. distance. Here again it would cost around Rs.850 to procure in black market. The market value of teak is largely based on transaction costs rather production cost. And these transaction costs are higher under permits and controls Raj.
Based on these experiences once could consider 3 to 4 lakh seedlings per every village of an average size of 500 hectares over a period of 3 years. Sadguru apart from banking on its integrated NRM approach and some mathematical modelling to scale up its
The only alternative is to liberalise forestry sector and let people have fairer chance to grow and sell timber at fair market price. With this the markets will develop and enough employment could also be generated though community forestry.
forestry sector programs.
5. Meeting contingencies through Agro/farm forestry: The acceptability of afforestation also largely attributes itself to family’s strategy to minimising the risk factor and plan for future. For example, families with relatively large size, look forward to plantations, to meet the future needs such as children’s
11 marriage, education, health etc. These future needs are well planned at household level to minimise the risk of ‘debt trap’, which they are aware of. In this case trees are like ‘Mutual Funds’ that have appreciation value and easy to liquidate.
Apart from this they also provide greater flexibility in risk management as they even seasonal drought, a recurring phenomenon in most tropical dry lands. Agro-forestry takes care of these socio-economic factors, apart from its impact on soil moisture conservation and ground water recharge. The controversy of Eucalyptus drawing excess ground water remains conspicuous. Hence it is important to understand the factors that influence a family to adopt particular program.
In a developing economy, easy liquidity is another criterion for popularity of the forestry scheme. People go for early yielding varieties as their cash reserves are limited and earnings are subsistence based. To come out of ‘debt trap’ they prefer trees of short duration and easy marketability. Any program that aim at increasing household productivity should carefully consider these factors viz., ‘debt’, ‘disposable assets’-‘marketability’. Once farmers sail safely through drought or other contingency; they generally re-plant trees on their own without any assistance, external motivation / incentive or subsidy.
6. Market forces and household strategies: Most of the farm forestry is primarily to meet household forest needs like fuel, fruit, fodder, building material, agriculture implements and other forest produce related needs. They are also used as
For example, in Dahod farmers who adopt Eucalyptus after the second harvest at 10th year, they shift to horticulture or other value added crops in the same land. Farmers said that the first harvest mainly used for house construction and sale of surplus poles. The second harvest is entirely for sale to meet contingencies or fund social event. However, contingencies top the priority list in both the harvests. Once family generates enough assets from tree cropping, it moves towards value added farming that gives annualised yields.
trading commodity in developing countries.
Quite different from the predominant notion, local people largely prefer not to sell the produce in urban markets. It is not the difficulty in access, but other factors such as internal demand and chances of getting duped by middle men force them to sell
12 locally. Apart from other externalities, it is the ready demand in and around village help poor farmers, to sell the produce locally. Low-cost supplies (through illegitimate means) from natural forests often fulfil the needs of urban or industrial markets.
Forest produce is globally undervalued and often sold at unsustainable prising. Lack of political will, poor awareness in public and misplaced environmental priorities grossly undervalued forest trade-a lost opportunity for poor to sustain their livelihood.
Prise controls, government restrictions on private harvesting, transportation and sale of wood encourage black markets in urban centres. The wood prise gets further lowered in black markets as the production cost amounts to nil to a black marketer. Though they may have to incur cost of bribes at various levels but at the end it proves cheaper than cultivated crop.
The tragedy of Eucalyptus in Haryana and Punjab of northern India is a standing example of chaotic markets and misplaced priorities. Farmers, who adopted Eucalyptus as commercial plantation here failed to assess markets. Yet, the case with many hilly areas (scheduled) is somewhat different.
Most of the farm and agro forestry plantations among small land holders are evolved out of livelihood strategies at household level. Wherever the local forest resources turned unproductive community forestry succeeded and established a separate identity. People readily plant timber varieties and sell to the immediate customer next door who would build a house. The case is not same in Punjab and Haryana. They targeted external markets where black markets rule the roost. Subsequently they could not get reasonable price. As farmers were also well off with pucca housing in village their need for timber was less.
Local market based production system would sustain longer in such circumstances. Once the demand saturates, people should shift to other local needs to sustain demand and supply cycle. In this case the risk factors are much under control as household could avoid black markets in the entire trade cycle. However the practice should change to generate positive and growth oriented markets in forestry sector.
13 Unless the markets are improved the uptake of forestry among communities would not be encouraging. It is not just about timber but also other forest produce as well. For example in southern Gujarat many farmers who adopted horticulture started removing old crops as the supplies surpassed demand. Some of them shifted from traditional mango crop to cashew nuts.
7. Suitability of the programme:
Large number of projects has failed to achieve projected results because the design is not client centric. The programs promoted under unrealistic, risk prone and poorly developed institutional and socio-economic
Key principles in promoting community forestry.
framework. For example, a Kisan nursery under any government scheme takes minimum 5 months to get
sanctioned. By the time farmer gets approval he/she misses all dates for
raising nursery and lands up with poor
survival rates. Some organizations
Know peoples priorities in forestry Involve all households of the village in programme Prioritise women leadership Institutionalise village forestry with community dialogue Build capacity of local leaders Encourage native species Programme around women’s need and priority Provide strategic inputs in personal earnings & investments Integrate with other development activities
good institutional linkages with regional offices get it done little earlier. These projects also impose considerable amount of burden on poor in form of people’s contribution (on the assumed lines of equity and participation) without assessing the condition of poorest. Arguably projects fail.
Blame the poor for failure of forestry program and centralise works with high costs is another trend commonly observed across the country. Most of the rural development programs under forestry opt for high cost wire fence to protect plantations in commons instead of low cost social fencing. Social fencing could only fail if the involvement of poor in program is less. Mismatched priorities of institutions and communities lead to failure of forestry programs. For example, most of the forestry programmes under food for work in Orisa, in early 80’s largely failed as the main objective is targeted to mitigate hunger rather plant
14 and survive trees. As a result the programme nether attained hunger-less society not income for people. Apart from geophysical factors, market forces, legal constraints (licence & controls) and administrative failures (Trickle down value of net fund) also badly affected the programme. Similar the fate of rural development programs like DPAP, EAS and IRDP programmes in `80s throughout the nation (C.H. Hanumanthrao 1994). 8. People’s choice for tree plantation under watershed: Experience at Sadguru suggests that women often are clear what species they want to plant and for what. They also are aware of the environmental consequences of certain species- positive or negative. User groups and women groups should be contacted before promoting agro forestry. Species of their choice will yield good survival even at nursery level and certainly at plantation sites. Seasoned nursery growers generally know technical parameter like site suitability and hence their knowledge need not be undervalued.
When people plant trees? When they get trees of their choice When trees are available in village nurseries When they get good market value and When plantation programme continue for more than two years. When they are exposed to pre and post plantations care in training. When they get plants timely and in required number. When the land gets divided among generations. When transaction costs to get and raise nursery are lower. Why people plant? Trees require less labour than most other crops Trees are also planted where surplus labour is available Trees are planted where land production is marginal and water is scarce. Trees are planted where surplus lands and fallow lands are available Trees are planted to pass on the assets to next generations
Trees are planted to cope with contingencies
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Tree plantation programmes generate seasonal employment. When people don’t plant trees! When the species are not of their choice When the species are not of economic value When the gestation periods are large When the transaction costs of liquidity are higher and complex When the initial investments are higher When the nurseries are far from plantation sites
9. How subsidies fail and when they work? Subsidies to offset the establishment and maintenance costs of plantations, in many cases did not provide desired results. However the initial establishment cost in forestry programmes was relatively less in comparison to the crops. In many cases (rather Schemes), farmers plant trees in response to the short-term gains i.e., seasonal employment. Subsidies often availed by large farmers (well documented in many reports on UP forestry programmes under World Bank support in 80s) as the targets were achieved quickly with fewer transactions, reducing the workload of supervisors at field level. However the subsidies are necessary to increase the tree planting stocks every year. It is wiser to bear the cost of plants in agro and farm forestry models rather to manage plantations under state owned forest lands. The experiences suggest that not only earning the hard cash, but also reinvesting this sum in other productive
For example, at Rs.44/USD it costs Rs. 3 (6.8 cents) to raise a seedling under agro or farm forestry model in late 90s. And the same costs the state administration not less than Rs. 15 (34 cents)as per figures provided by local forest guard. It is expensive for the State to manage social forestry or community forestry under its control or ownership. Secondly the resulting assets directly benefit people who raise them. SWDF experience reveals that local people earned up to Rs. 100 000 ($2275) in a period of 10 years per family with an initial investment of Rs. 3600 ($82) on agro forestry pattern. This productivity cannot be achieved without subsidy as poor farmer cannot invest $82 initially.
assets like Water pumps, Tractor, Floor mill, Bullocks etc., to further boost their agriculture productivity matter to nursery
16 growers on hill sides. Hence policy makers should very carefully consider subsidy withdrawals in certain programs, especially when it makes better economic sense. If such subsidies are cut to dedicated and committed NGOs that work for decades to improve the region will adversely affect entire regional growth. Some governments are more inclined to diver such subsidies and funds to their own departments. However as mentioned earlier, programs do suffer for lack of understanding of ground realities and local experience.
Besides large scale programs with short term project goals never yielded desired results as no one on project is committed for long term goals and neither accountable. The author himself has systematically observed a patch of 30 acre forest land on his way to office replanted for past 12 consecutive years. Officers were given responsibility to regenerate this patch under new working plan-only to find that the patch of land adamant to regenerate. Such huge wastage of resources can be curbed, if local NGO is involved.
So what kind of trade off, a policy maker disposes when s/he promotes centralised state managed programs to that of bottom up program suggested by NGOs and CBOs. Global players in development like World Bank, UNDP, Asian Development Bank should seriously consider these experiences from grassroots before they decide on subsidies/grants in some sectors. Most of the subsidy amount is spent on working capital / operational expenses of the implementing agency and meagre amount is dedicated for actual program and beneficiaries. Such policies never benefit the people at grassroots.
There are also disadvantages with subsidised regimes. Some may argue whether planting stock available at less cost is justified? Arguably, sometimes the actual costs of raising and managing planting stocks are distorted due to subsidies to keep the overall cost low to attract greater subsidies. However the question remains whether the planting stocks are really subsidised? How much a nursery raiser earns and how much the planter earns? Even if the plantations are subsidised, how much they receive at the end? This is again a major cause of resentment to subsidies, as the amount eventually reaches poor is not justifiable.
17 Then, should we change the programme approach and make administration more accountable, put in checks and balances, and increase participation of NGOs and communities or withdraw subsidies?
The probable answer could be to enhance the service delivery mechanism, improvising the project design and decentralise execution. Experiences throughout the country suggest that, afforestation promoted through NGOs succeeded far better than that executed through regular administrative channels for the above reasons. Success of many watershed projects in early 90s in different states substantiate this fact that decentralised, community centred micro watersheds are more accountable and result oriented than conventional soil conservation approaches adopted by States directly under ‘Land Development’ departments. Here the role of NGOs must be recognised. However, governments in developing countries also need funds to maintain their own costs. So the easy way out for any government is hack NGOs and divert the funds to departments. This is what exactly happened in late 90s with watershed program. 99% NGOs are sidelined from implementation of watershed program under Rural Development Ministry and replaced with its own local departments and consulting staff.
In light of above argument, the general assumption that 'subsidies benefit only rich and never reach poor' (and hence scrape them) seems illogical. As the focus of desired change should subscribe to decentralised delivery mechanism and greater value (appreciation) of the ‘subsidy’ amount at beneficiary level rather amount of subsidy allocated at central level. There are large number of small village institutions, groups and NGOs who sincerely deliver the services at low cost. If bureaucracy doesn’t deliver it effectively, then it is the problem with delivery mechanism but not subsidy. However it is common place to observe that either subsidy or decentralization scraped but centralized delivery mechanism retained.
10. Why many tree grower societies failed and how?
Trees in farming system should be seen as integral part of household needs and livelihood strategies for survival. However many interventions responded to economic changes in demand and supply of wood and its subsidiaries. "Many
18 forestry projects were a response to a perceived energy supply problem, rather than to real local needs for trees and tree products". In third world countries markets (timber and non-timber forest produce) are often volatile and often controlled by invisible forces that are outside the legal framework of governance.
This has abandoned many innocent tree grower societies to enter the markets. With this the purpose of such societies was at stake where they could neither bear the losses nor regulate the market. The NDDB experiences in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, attempts by VIKSAT(NGO) in NTFP in Gujarat are some of the recent examples on these lines. Apart from this, common land as prime resource to promote community forestry succumbed to encroachments, litigation and long drawn administrative procedures for procurement. As a result the scope for initiation of any activity under tree grower co-operatives itself has narrowed.
Governments’ often control the commercial sale of private forest products under Forest Act. Permits to harvest transport and sell wood is cumbersome and costly bureaucratic procedures and involve middlemen who have the skills and resources to navigate the procedure. These middlemen are established players in the system work as proxy in decision making process. This resulted in complex, uncertain and distorted markets where fairer production and market failed flatly. However local, internal trading with in villages continued based on outside market values as benchmark. They generally escape the regulator while transporting or trading. This has resulted in good markets for households involved in agro-forestry and who never thought of collective marketing at local level.
11. Hurdles in promoting community forestry :
Deceptive markets and political interference rule forest related activities. For long during 80s and 90s prices of fuel-wood in urban markets are kept low, for the same reasons of political gain that lead government to keep urban food prices artificially low. However from 2000 onwards alternative fuels availability has changed the urban firewood market demand considerably. Forest produce sold by the state forest departments far below the actual costs say a bamboo prised at @ Rs.1/- to the authorised contractor or villager, where it costs about Rs.15, in open markets.
19 Neither the prising of State Forest Development Corporations nor local markets hold true when we calculate its actual costs of production and fair transactions. If such practices are identified and corrected, then state can easily allocate higher subsidies to farmers without depending on external borrowings.
The situation could improve and markets become more transparent only when the farm production substitutes the current state owned forest produce. With this the markets could become relatively open and products can get real value. This could also result in rationalising subsidies. Subsidies based on deceptive market values often hamper the real cost of production and proportional losses are burdened on the farmers where many of his/her services are counted as "free services". Which in fact costs much higher than the subsidy s/he gets to raise the planting stocks?
There however exists fair scope to promote commons under watershed approach as long as they cater to local demands. “In common pool based regime the management of land is a community affair. Scarcity of land and its resulting hardship tend to be a shared phenomenon, because the survival of all depends upon no one putting any one else in the community at risk… This does not mean that everyone is equal in commons. Gender cast and class inequalities for instance certainly exists both between households and with in households. In general however, a rough equity prevails in which everyone has some degree of bargaining power (Nicholas Hildyard 1997). But its matter of priority of state versus community will.
12. Deceptive targets & poor quality: High targets in forestry plantations resulted in ‘poor quality’ programme. Number of seedlings planted is often seriously counted but not the survival rates. Many times the quantity also influenced the technical standards that need to be maintained and practised at nursery level. Lack of extension services on regular basis and too much centralised management resulted in failures. There is need for flexibility, in programme implementation. The fundamental principal is that forestry survives and succeeded on decentralization and diversity.
20 It is general political atmosphere that pressurises officials in bureaucracy to achieve targets (often financial) not getting too concerned about results. This virus inflicted the entire system right from central Ministries to the last official in chainvillage Extension Officer. Yearly fund allocation by Finance Ministry depends on how much the receiving ministry spent last fiscal year, but not what it achieved or what result’s it has derived with last years’ budget. The same flows down to district level then block and village. With this the targets tend to get unrealistic and results are invisible.
To avoid this, bottom up approach where village micro plans decide how many trees they will grow and what varieties they prefer should be adopted. The watershed approach can care these factors under participatory planning implemented by local NGOs-not the government in its current form.
13. Role of Extension:
Extension services in species choice, range, market forces, program system will help a long way in promoting forestry under watershed model. Flexibility in responding to the needs of farmers who are involved in the programme will also add to the success. Most of the foresters believe the myth that ‘unless some material or financial incentive is offered to the villagers, they will never take up forest conservation’. Some foresters have no clear idea about how to involve the community and how to build a bridge of trust at local level(S B Roy 1998). Though there are very good administrators / conservators who have demonstrated excellent results with community participation, their number is limited. They are either transferred before they see results (so that they will never take up another challenge in future) or the program approach changed from top to bottom.
In a programmatic mode, successful practices often need to be reviewed, debated and evolved with people in the form of trainings, exposures and meetings. This will give the programme continuity and people also relate to the programme in much better way. In contrast to this approach in many not so successful PFM/JFM programmes, commitment and involvement of junior level staff in state departments with people is less visible. Sometimes the ‘Samiti’ (institution) formed to manage
21 community forestry maintains the same old advisory attitude leading to rapid and drastic decline in effectiveness. Training and orientation courses for staff on new strategies need to be regularly organised. (R K Gvardhan etal 1996)
14. Trainings in community forestry* Experiences at Sadguru Foundation indicate that training and exposure of nursery raisers, planters, extension agents, foresters, and even Range Officers helps in Subject
No.of Trainings
Total training days
Participants female 304
male total 101 405
Nursery raiser technical and 08 08 Awareness camps Staff development workshops 11 11 0037 0061 0098 Village environmental camps 10 10 0178 0132 0310 Exposure visits to other areas 07 07 0193 0037 0230 Regional Training/ workshops for 11 26 0245 0339 0584 GO & NGO partners Technical input camps 20 20 2073 0573 2646 (post plantation) Co-operative management 16 16 0540 0143 0683 Camps and Trainings Total 83 98 3570 1386 4956 program success. People understand their environment better, feel to contribute, negotiate to further the cause and organises within themselves once they see similar efforts elsewhere. Training provides them constant inputs on ways to raise quality seedlings? Their rights as nursery raisers/planters! What are their responsibilities within the immediate environment? Interaction between the officials and people on training course also creates mutually amicable environment where each one is obliged to respect other point of view.
15. Data base & Monitoring:
Data need to be pooled at district level on sample basis to observe the trend of vegetation and its impact on community. This could be on Aerial photographic coverage, satellite imagery of different periods, secondary data on agro-ecological regions, land use systems, conditions of wealth and market access, monitoring, evaluation, household and regional surveys, involving people at planning and decision making level. Baseline and Impact surveys feed the program from time to
22 time to monitor the progress and measure the impact. The results of such data analysis should feed back into the district level governing council for yearly plans.
Implementing agencies should adopt sample surveys to monitor community needs, natural resource condition and market forces. This should be done on regular basis with the help of district administration.
Generally the data collected is not sincerely analysed and findings are not incorporated in to the programmes as feedback. With this the data so collected remains in store, or sometimes lost forever. At Sadguru, such data is processed and analysed to measure the impact of the programme and also draw feedback to make necessary changes in programme strategies. Apart from this regular and continuous photo documentation has also been maintained to measure record the impact of programme. This information stored digitally to retain on long term basis.
Staff and external research institutions, to assess and record the impact, document case studies on varied experiences in field, and trends in programme on constant basis. This helps in reviewing and understanding the programme better. This is an important consideration that needs to be strictly confined to, by all the implementing agencies, so that the programme will ultimately succeed.
