Sustainability of forest management comes through community participation at all levels of intervention from planning, intervention and monitoring. There should be a bottom-up approach in microplanning, which requires mobilization of the community to participate in all forestry related interventions and also continuous monitoring.
A study conducted in 45 villages in the central Himalayas assesses the current status of van panchayats, an old institution of decentralised forest governance. It finds that locals are indifferent to the administrative jurisdiction of the forest in the course of their resource extraction activities. There is no quantitative evidence that they are exercising restraint while accessing and using locally governed forests. Collective rule violation appears to be common. May 3-9, 2008
HISTORY is an open book that generations of bureaucrats have steadfastly ignored. Civil servants have repeatedly tried to deny people -- especially tribals and hill people -- access to natural
The van panchayats of the Uttar Pradesh hills were created to restore the vital link between villagers and their forests. Today, they are prime takeover targets of the forest and revenue departments, whose main aim is to exploit the forests. KOSHY CHERAIL
THE people of the Uttar Pradesh hills have always strongly opposed attempts to snatch their traditional rights. Today, they are asserting themselves once again. At various seminars and meetings
