Forest Management as Regional Governance: an Experience in India

摘要

Since the 1980s, many types of community-based forest management (CBFM) systems have spread throughout the world. In India, joint forest management (JFM) was launched in the 1990s in several states as a form of CBFM. Under this program, 'jointness' is crucial to success. Many studies have investigated the relationship between the local people and authorities such as the Forest Department, NGOs and urban citizens; and researchers have studied village social structure such as how committees are constituted and the balance of genders and generations. Regions, including forests, however, are not static entities and were developed historically. They were settled not only at the village scale, but also at the scale of multiple villages. Nagarahole National Park (NNP) was part of a dense forest. Since the 19th century, the forest has been developed and various migrant peoples have come to settle the forest region. After NNP was established, it was expected that the forest would be maintained under suitable management as a protected area for its biodiversity and rich flora. What happened, though, was a donut-shaped region around NNP came to be settled with diverse communities. We have to pay attention to the regional structure when pursuing feasibility of forest management systems.