An analysis on the role of local Institutions in forest management

Individual report of Experiential Learning-2(Kheonjar, Odhisa)

Submitted by :

- B V Naveen
- H2018NRG006
- M.A(NRG-1)
- TISS, Hyderabad
 Chapter I

Research Topic

An Analysis on the role of local institutions in forest management

Rationale for selection of the research question :

Vana samarakshana Samithi and Tutorial forest management are the two local institutions of
forest management in Sahapur, Kheonjar. Vana samarakshana Samithi has been defunct from
2011 as the term of five years came to an end and no efforts were taken to renew this term
period. This led to the formation of an informal forest association called Tutorial forest
management and the later years have witnessed a decline in the efficiency of forest
management. So, in this paper I try to analyze the effectiveness of local institutions in
managing the forests within the context of Sahapur jungle. Moreover, this forest is located
amidst the tribal belt whose livelihood is directly linked to the forest management and the
implementation of Community Rights Forest Act as well.

Introduction
Handing over the management of forest to local institutions has evolved as part of
decentralization. The local institutions are a key component in the decentralization process of
natural resources as they determine the outcomes whether it might be a positive or negative
result. The term local institutions refers to institutional policies and processes that atre found
in our site. For example, Vana samarakshana samithi and tutorial forest management ate the
two institutions that are associated with forest management in Sahapur.It establishes a
relation between decentralization and resource users. However, most of the studies that
researched on local institutions and their efficiency in managing forests are unclear. A
probable reason for this might be insufficient statistical data, which makes it difficult for us to
come up with a direct conclusion like worst or better or good governance. The major
stakeholders involved in local institutions are the local community, officials of the
government at local levels and the leaders of the village. There are cases of both success and
failure under the governance of local institutions. The outcomes of local institutions
managing the forest depends on several factors like the conditions of the forest, diversity of
the community and the beliefs or values that they attach to forests, the availability of good
market for the forest products and the geographical locations of the forest. The importance
for local institutions grew as the local people have better knowledge of the forest resources
and empowerment of such people will help in incorporating diverse interests for better
management of the forest. The problem arises once the local people start over use of these
resources to meet their demands. There is a prevalence of self -interest over social interest in
these cases which can be linked to the concept of common pool resources. As the managing
of common pool resources is based on the local people there has been increased interest over
bottom top approach to make the local community more accountable by involving them
under the governance process. When the local institutions exists, the community can exercise
property rights and so there is no supreme authority of the government in managing these
forests. The formation a local institution will make the villagers more accountable for their
deeds making them answerable for both the positive and negative outcomes. What is
important here is the fact that the performance of local institutions depends on its strength
and to the extent of how successful it is when it comes to implementation of rules. It is these
institutions that help us to understand the factors of livelihood dependence like access to
forest and its role in subsistence lifestyle of sahapur, setting up a procedure for conflict
resolution. For example under the tutorial management of sahapur, it is mostly the elders and
gram panachyat who are involved in dealing conflicts.

Chapter II

Literature Review

Arvind Khare , Madhu Sarin and NC Saxena published a report titled Joint Forest
Management: policy, Practice and Prospects. They have analyzed the relationship between
the institutions governing Joint Forest Management and the local communities. They also
discussed how there is continued dominance by the state on forest which lead to lobbying of
the chief members of the local institutions. Although certain forests are declared as
community owned there is no complete authority by these institutions to look after the forest.
The inclusion of elite people in the governing body of a local forest institution often resulted
in exploitation of forest products and inequalities to exercise the rights of the community
members. The author says that in such cases the community would react in two ways; one
way is to follow the path of encroachment to meet their subsistence needs while the other
way is to form a self initiated forest management communities so that there is sustainable use
of resources.

Decentralized governance and ecological health: why local institutions fail to moderate
deforestation in Mpigi district of Uganda is a full length research paper by Abwoli Y.
Banana,Joseph Bahati and William Gombya-Ssembajjwe came up with the conclusion
that the formation and functioning of a forest institute is based on a multiple no. of factors
like the type of forest (rate of regeneration, location and soil types), the proximity of a forest
from the nearby market as it decides the usage and sale of forest products and the
values,customs and beliefs of the diverse community members. What need to be understood
here is the fact that these factors often change with the passage of time and so the rules and
governing mechanism of the institutions should adapt to these changes. A forest institute
would be successful only when it updates to incorporate and welcome these modern changes.
The case studies of different forests like Mpanga, Namungo showed that when strict rules
were imposed by the councilors the condition of the forests improved provided the local
people were incompliance with the rules framed.

Decentralization of Forest Management, Local Institutional Capacity and its Effect on

Access of Local People to Forest Resources: the Case of West Sumatra, Indonesia by
Mahdi , Ganesh had analyzed the ways in which the structure of local institutions have
changed after decentralization of forest management in West Sumatra, which in turn, lead to
the change in existing rules and regulations such that the local people’s access and overuse of
the forest products as the main source of livelihoods have significantly increased. Their
analysis points out the fact that, within the region, the weakening of institutions has paved
way for the elites and other powerful income groups to occupy more land, thus enhancing
their livelihoods. However, this weakened local institutions had also resulted in the lower
income groups, concentrating more into the use of forest products and resources, in order to
survive against the economic inequality created by this elite class.

Local people’s participation in forest management: The place of Ghana’s CFC

approach by P. Osei-Tutu is a research journal focusing on the nature of Community
Forest Committee as an institute that facilitates the participation of local people in forest
management as well as extended their support by assisting the Forest Division Office by
undertaking initiatives like mobilization of communities and generating awareness among the
local people about the regeneration capacity of forest and how the overuse of forest resources
would cause an ecological imbalance. They have also involved in forest restoration and
seedling activities. The community forest committee have also engaged in bringing down of
unlawful activities like harvesting of timber beyond the permitted limits, uncontrolled grazing
activities and making sure that the fuel wood collection is not allowed for commercial sale.
They were even involved in protecting the forest from forest fire and maintenance of forest
boundaries.

Forest and People: Understanding the Institutional Governance, Social Identity, and
People's Participation in Indian Forest Management by Himadri Sinha introspects the
role of Community based institution in forest management and its evolution process. He says
that sometimes an informal institutions continues to exist even though there is no presence of
a formal institution that matches with the textbook meaning. Two main reasons for this is the
upholding of strong traditional values and the second one is the economic value of forest
products that makes peoples livelihood. The role of various other institutions like non
governmental organizations and forest department in motivating the rural youth and how the
presence of a good leaders can improve the forest management is seen here. He attributes a
new term for this called as the indigenous community forest management. There would be
more participation by people when institutions evolve out of their interest making them more
sustainable, more scope for self governance and the freedom of exercising individual rights.

Richard Giliba of Forestry Training Institute in Tanzania analyzed The Role and
Effectiveness of Local Institutions in the Management of Forest Biodiversity in New
Dabaga-Ulongambi Forest Reserve, Iringa Region Tanzania used different techniques like
participatory rural appraisal tools, interviews and questionnaire to gather information about
the village resource committee and came up the results that local institutions should be given
more importance in managing the forests themselves in a way bringing the traditional
knowledge into conservational practices. As an institution the various responsibilities that
need to be taken care are enforcement of rules, generating awareness about forest education ,
involving the local people in conservationist activities are undertaken by the village
members when they were given importance keeping aside the governing aspects of
bureaucratic and administrative systems. A key finding here includes that recognition of the
local peoples participation will boost the ability of local people there by reducing the
dependence on external resources.
The importance of local traditional institutions in themanagement of natural resources
in the highlands of Eastern Africa is a working paper by Jeremias Mowo and Zenebe
Adimassu that focused on the role of traditional local institutions in the management of
natural resources. It was found that institutions will enable development in a sustainable
manner by facilitating mechanisms of conflict resolution,,self-governance,resource
mobilization and shared respomses for collectivce decision making. The author goes on to
say that local institutions in Mali are involved in sanctioning of tresspassers and regulating
the access to forests. He also mentioned that institutions have their weakness as well when it
comes to adapting economically viable structure in forest management and so there needs to
be an external source of support in such cases and sees the role communities as custodian of
traditional ecological knowledge and establishes a link between the traditional knowledge
and success of the organization.It is revealed that the historical trend of institutional
importance is growing as the modern studies have showed interest in accepting the role of
local people and their knowledge about the forest.The research methodology used is focused
group discussions and personal interviews.

Local institutions in forest management by Jephine Mogoi and Emily Obonyo is a

policy brief explaining that the success of natural resource management institute depends on
the potential of local people when engaged in collective action. The authors have discussed
about the case study of mount Kenya forest management and sees institutions as tools of
capacity building, proven mechanism for conflict resolution and governance bodies that have
adapted to the technological changes and welcoming the policies of new research works. A
special emphasis is given about the role of government incentives to encourage the
stakeholders in showing an active participation of forest management.

Indigeneous Institutions and forest conservation : User group self initiatives in India by
Madhushree Sekher The successes of community organizations in management of natural
resources depend largely on the ability of local communities to self organize themselves into
collective action groups. Natural Resource Management being an approach that integrates
research on different types of natural resources into stakeholder-driven processes of adaptive
management and innovation, local institutions may use collective action to improve
livelihoods, ensure ecosystem resilience, improve agricultural productivity and ensure a
sustained availability of environmental services. Since the introduction of a New Forest
Policy in 2005, Kenya has now accepted the important role played by local community
institutions in management of natural resources.
 Chapter III

Methodologies and Tools of Data Collection

IFRI framework of data collection

(a) INTRODUCTION

IFRI stands for the International Forestry Resources and Institutions. International Forestry
Resource Institutions (IFRI) is an institution whose aim is to work on research programs for
development of institutions that work on forest governance. IFRI has a particular framework
to gather information (the use of different data forms and analysing them) for research and
its network is spread over 11 countries across the world in collaboration with a research
institute present in that country. In India it is working with Foundation for Ecological
Security (FES) located in Anand, Gujarat. It focuses mainly on institutions and policy making
bodies that are founded for forest management and sustainable development. The framework
is based on Institutional Analysis and Design (IAD) given by Elinor Ostrom.Moreover,
information can be compared between different countries as every follows the same
framework.

(b) DEVELOPMENT OF THE IFRI RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

The IFRI Research Framework was developed at Indiana University in 1992 by the efforts of
the famous politico-economist and environmentalist, Elinor Ostrom and others. It was
initially composed of a network of collaborating research centres at 12 universities and 11
countries around the world forming a global platform so that researchers can access and use
data for the study of various research sites from all around the world.

(c) OBJECTIVES OF THE IFRI RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

o Assess the nature of tradeoffs among forest conservation, livelihood development and
carbon sequestration.
o The role of institutions and policies in promoting better forest outcomes.
o To measure the changes in the forest cover over time, level of degradation, level of
soil fertility and rates of soil erosion.
o To study the changes in the local governance structures over a period of time
 o To share information with the associated institutions

(d) THE IFRI RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

The IFRI research instruments provide knowledge about the local population and their use of
the forest resources. By using the same research instruments across various sites and times,
IFRI studies can assess the usefulness of biophysical, demographic, cultural, and economic
conditions for the sustainable use of forests. Moreover, such studies help the policy makers
with a systematic understanding of findings about how the local populations interact with the
forest resources. This kind of interaction among the forest users, policy makers, scientist,
conservationists, environmentalists, and activists will promote sustainable utilization of the
forest resources. Each research instrument mentioned in the IFRI manual includes the
variables that the researchers are using to understand the connection between the biophysical
characteristics of the forests and the human interaction with the environment.

The Site Overview

The IFRI Site Overview form gives information about the physical features of the area,
whether there is one or more distinct forest/settlement. This form also gives general
information about the site and a broad overview of the site that the researcher wants to study
using the framework.

Forest Form

A forest is defined as a surface area with woody vegetation of at least 0.5 hectares, exploited
by at least three households and governed overall by the same legal structure. This form
about gives the details of the size, ownership, internal differentiation within the forests and
the forest products harvested. Also, this form is used to gather information about the uses of
various forest products.

Forest Plot Form

The forest plot form is used to collect information in random plots that are divided into
composed to two circles of 3 metres and 10 metres. In the 3 metres boundary, the researcher
is supposed to collect information about all the woody/herbaceous climbers, shrubs and
saplings. Within the 10 metre boundary, the researcher is supposed to collect information
about trees (with more than 15 cms Girth at Breast Height), palm and climbers.
Demarcated boundary of forest and the location of 60 plot(s).

The Settlement Form

The Settlement form identifies a settlement inhabited by one or more forest user groups.
This form is also useful in gathering information about the settlement and its relation to
external markets and the administrative centers. The form also urges the researcher to collect
information about the climatic features, the soil types, vegetation, topography and elevation
of the settlement with the surrounding area.

Forest Association Form

The Forest Association form studies about the institutional arrangements for forest
governance and management .Further details include how the association has arranged,
coordinated or made rules about governance and structure of the association and the general
membership.

Forest Product Form

The Forest Product form contains information about the uses of forest products and about the
rules associated with harvesting that particular forest product like when, how much, where
and what restrictions exist for the harvesting practices.

Why IFRI ?

What separates IFRI from other designs is its ability to gather information by covering each
and every element that is directly or indirectly linked to institutions and Forests. For example,
it asks details about women entry,history of village and caste of association head (something
that reflects indian context) on one side and also asks questions related to forest conditions in
the last five years as well. Thus,it gives us a holistic approach (700 questions to ten forms to
six forms) to cover minute aspects as well as major factors enabling researchers and policy
makers to make it more inclusive.The use of ten forms like association, product, site,
settlement and Forest forms allows us to get a wide range of information and never
undermines the function of minute aspects.

Other approaches like SES is a broad system approach that looks through a
macro lens giving us a broad system approach. IAD focuses on actors and attributes making it
a better framework but not a good tool to gather information. So what sets apart IFRI from
these is its ability to incorporate the framework of IAD and its function to work as a tool as
well enabling in depth collection of data. As it has a world wide network we can compare and
analyse the success stories and loopholes in the system as well.To conclude, it covers all the
aspects that are directly or indirectly linked to forest governance.

Chapter IV
SITE OVERVIEW

(a) LOCATION

The name of our field site is Saharpur village which comes under Banspal block of
kendujhar district in Odisha. Generally Kendujhar is also known as Keonjhar. The gram
panchayat is Saharpur itself, more five villages come under this panchayat. The name of the
village sarpanch is Kalyani Nayak . the location of the village is near to the block head office
thus, other basic amenities such as panchayat office, gramin bank, daily & weekly market,
primary & high school, public health centre, all are at a distance of 1km from the village
which makes it better comparing to the other villages that comes under Saharpur panchayat.
Location of the Sahapur village in Kheonjar district of Odhisa.

(b) FOREST

The village is surrounded by one forest only named as Saharpur jungle, it is a tropical
deciduous forest on a hilly rolling terrain. The forest cover was at an elevation of minimum
523m to 816m maximum, slope of the forest varies from 6 to 41 degree, as we recorded.
Organic matter was found in 90% of plots, 60% of plots have minor erosion & few gully
erosions in some location was observed. On the foothills, the villagers practice shifting
cultivation. The forest is demarcated well by stone wall, firstly to understand the use of
harvesting across the boundary & behind the boundary secondly to understand the amount of
soil erosion and prevent degradation. The forest is specified into three main parts namely
Puranapani, chuyapani, Bhalugarh & further it is specified with different names by the
villagers such as Addi, Jerampani, Tungru, Raikakot, etc according to the areas of use. There
is also a .running stream in the forest. This water is used for drinking purpose by connecting
pipelines to the village. Present condition of the forest is moderate to dense.
(c) DEMOGRAPHY

There are total 110 households in the village, and the total population is around 453 as many
people migrate to nearby towns and cities in search of jobs. The male and female ratio of the
village is moderate as it is complete tribal belt, there is no discrimination between male and
females. In fact during our few days stay we got to observe that females are more active in
participation whether in meetings\discussions or work to earn their livelihood starting from
daily wage labours in construction work, going to forest for collecting field work, selling
their produces in the market days, or their daily household work. Whereas the men keep
themselves limited only to daily wage labour, cultivation, or working in nearby towns and
cities.Further the village has only 1 settlement with three habitats in a stretch. The most
dominant group is Bhuya community, it is also recognised as PVTG (Primitive Vulnerable
Tribal Group) is a government of India classification created with the purpose of enabling
improvement to certain tribal communities with particularly low development indices. Apart
from Bhuiya there are two more tribal communities namely Munda and Goura is about 20 to
30 per cent of the total population in the village. According to the information we collected
from the panchayat office the birth rate is much higher than death rate in the village and the
major population comprises of the working age.

(d) SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS

According to 2011 census Keonjhar is 264th populous district of India having the population
of 18,02,777. Sex ratio of this district is 987 females per 1000 males. Overall literacy rate is
69%. In the demographical constitution, 44.5% people is Scheduled Tribe and 11.62% people
consists of Scheduled Caste. Bhuiya, Juango, Munda, Orao, Ho, Kora, Santhal are dominat
tribal groups residing here. Due, to the abundance of tribal people here, general culture of this
district also aligns with tribal culture. Agriculture, industry, tourism industry are the basic
economy of this district. Beside, this district has received a huge sum of money as ‘District
Minerals Development Fund’ which has been used in afforestation, irrigation, drinking water,
electrification of villages, skill development and many more infrastructural.

Tools of Data Collection

IFRI study in the Sahapur village has been studied with the following of

methods of data collection where in different methods and tools were used to collect data
from different sources, primary as well as secondary. These methods and tools of data

collection have been listed down –

1. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools

2. Focused Group Discussion (FGD)

3. Key Informant Interview groups

4. IFRI framework of data collection

5. Community Resource Person

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools

There were three common PRA tools and techniques which have been applied in the village
for collecting and analyzing information from different sources representing different
viewpoints. The very first among them was ‘rapport building’. Building rapport is one of the
most fundamental tools even before beginning the PRA techniques with the villagers.
Rapport is used to build relationships with others quickly and to gain their trust and
confidence so that they open up more easily which facilitates in conducting the PRA
exercises.

Social mapping

Maps are one of the most widely used and key tools of communication. Social mapping in
PRA is a technique which can be conducted with the village community who know location
of the houses and other facilities in the village more than us. Location and type of houses,
who stays where in the village, Houses of the important persons in the village such as the
village headmen, ward members, youth leader and the members of the SHGs. Kuchha houses
and Pucca houses, location of the nearby facilities such as schools, health centers, drinking
water, religious places, markets, shops etc.

Resource mapping

The Resource map shows the location of the different natural resources in the village. This
map provides visual representation of the village common property resources that helps the
community to understand, analyze and self -govern the resources present with the village
such as forest resources, land resources, water bodies and livestock. Details of forest, forests
demarcated as protected reserved forests, land use, water bodies like streams, irrigation
canals and rivers.

Resource map of Sahapur village

Key Informant Interview

Our work in the village during our 10 days Experiential Learning also included interviewing
major personalities in the village such as the village head, the Community Resource Person
(CRP), the elder members of the village and self-help groups to understand the institutional
and the administrative functions. An interview with these local people helped us to
understand the administrative setup of the village and how successful these institutions are.

The Community Resource Person

The Community Resource Person in Sahapur village was Mr.Ranjith who has been working
with Foundation for Ecological Services. He is the one who helped us in identifying the local
names of the forest species, assisting in PRA tools like social mapping and resource mapping.
Other important details of the functioning of forest association like vana samarakshna samiti,
its governing structure and the key members involved are explained him.
 Chapter V

Results and discussions

The key study findings are given below-

a) Total standing biomass of the 60 plots surveyed is 220.47 tones

b) The Shannon diversity index is 1.9 which implies that both the number of species and even
distribution of individuals among those species (relative dominance) is almost good.

c) The carbon stock calculated as 45% of dry weight is 16.004 tones per hectare

Habit of species

47%

7%

11%

4%
42%

Trees sapling shrubs climber and woody climber

Pictorial representation of floral diversity in Sahapur jungle

The IFRI framework has been used to study the forest by generating 60 random plots. It is
found that there are a total of 3028 individual floral species in which trees account to 42%
,saplings are 47% ,shrubs are 7% and climbers and woody climbers are 4%. The coverage of
saplings is high when compared to trees indicating a process of regeneration. The forest
association in the name of Vana samarakshana samiti was looking after the forest
management from 2007 to 2011. It is during this time wherein the rules were strict and the
presence of graduated sanctions was present. The local institution was able to ensure that
there is sustainable use of forest resources by monitoring the usage of forest by not allowing
to cut trees having a high girth at base height and requirement of prior permission to fell
timber,limiting the use of timber only to household purposes but not for commercial
purposes. When the rules are violated especially in case of big trees there was a fine of five
hundred rupees. It is this institution which made it clear about the rules over the boundaries
and drawing limitations over the use of forest land for agriculture. The role of a formal
institute like Vana samarakshana samiti at the local level was effective given the fact that it
has valued the opinions of local people and allowed the use of forest products for their
subsistence purpose, taking decisions through community participation to arrive at a
collective decision. As it was guided under an efficient leader like Kailash Barik, there was
enough support from the government authorities as well. But things have started to fall apart
when the five year term period ended in 2011 and no initiatives were taken to elect a formal
body which eventually led to the formation of an informal association called Tutorial forest
management resulting in the dilution and weakening of rules that were followed earlier.It is
clearly evident that the forest is on the path of degradation as there were no restrictions in
matters of grazing, usage of forest land for teak cultivation and uncontrolled access to
collection of firewood. When the local institutions function well the management of forest
follows the path of sustainability provided an external support from government and non
governmental organizations to educate and empower the local institutions to adapt to the
changing needs.

References :

1) Ostrom. E., (March, 2005), Understanding Institutional Diversity.

2) Ostrom.E., (1990, 2015), Governing the Commons, Cambridge University Press

3) Agrawal A, Ostrom E (2001). Collective action, property rights and decentralization in

resource use in India and Nepal

4) Ostrom E (1999). Self-governance and forest resources. CIFOR Occasional Paper no. 20
(February). Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). pp. 1–6.

5) Mowo, J., Adimassu The Importance of Local Traditional Institutions in the Management
of Natural Resources in the Highlands of Eastern Africa. Working Paper No 134. Nairobi:
World Agroforestry Centre. http://dx.doi.org/10.5716/WP11085.PDF

6) Local institution in Forest management ( www.fornis.net)

7) http://www.ifriresearch.net
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9) http://www.academicjournals.org/SRE

10)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325336149