Tribal livelihoods in post joint forest management era

School of Public Policy and Governance Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad WORKING PAPER SERIES NO. 1, December 2015

TRIBAL LIVELIHOODS IN POST JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT ERA: A STUDY IN THE WEST MIDNAPORE DISTRICT OF WEST BENGAL

Saity Roy

School of Public Policy and Governance Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad Roda Mistry College of Social Work and Research Centre, Opposite Biodiversity Park, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana - 500008 Email : sppg-si@tiss.edu Website : http://goo.gl/mQGBpF

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About Student Working Paper Series The Student Working Paper Series, is an attempt by the School of Public Policy and Governance, at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad to assimilate papers being worked upon the topics that will help enrich the public discourses by improving upon the clarity, accuracy and sophistication of discussions on the nation's Public Policy.

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SPPG provides opportunities to its students to think beyond conventional models of growth and development, and encourages them to generate ideas for developing institutional frameworks for accountable governance and the establishment of a socially equitable society. Its programs and activities are designed to create an environment for the well-trained scholars to access and collect information about contemporary policies and activities surrounding them so that they can produce timely research and undertake analysis on key topics of Public Policy.

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TRIBAL LIVELIHOODS IN POST JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT ERA: A STUDY IN THE WEST MIDNAPORE DISTRICT OF WEST BENGAL - Saity Roy Abstract Several communities depend on forests for their sources of livelihood. However, since colonial period, these forest fringe communities have been deprived of their ownership and usufruct rights. In 1988, with Joint Forest Management (JFM), the policy of the Government of India towards forest management changed. It also marked a shift in the government’s attitude towards the needs of the forest fringe communities, besides, the policy bringing in with it joint protection and management of the forests by these communities and the Forest Department, and benefit sharing between them. JFM was a step which focused on the recognition of customary rights of the people living close to the forests on forest resources after a century of alienation. JFM had come up as an attempt to provide livelihood security to the forest dependent communities, through sustainable use of forest wealth. A considerable proportion of these forest dependent communities, have always included a large section of the scheduled tribe population. Further there were visions of more added benefits like ecological, socio-political, community related benefits resulting out of this practice of joint protection of forests. JFM in West Bengal had its origin in Arabari in the 1970s, which is currently in the West Midnapore district of the State, before the policy was officially passed by the Government of India. However, the first state wide resolution supporting the Forest Protection Committee (FPC) programme was passed by the government of West Bengal, only in 1989. FPCs were institutions which came up to operationalise this policy. However, even after more than two decades since it became officially passed, forest protection through community participation ceases to exist in many parts of the State, which put forth one of the first examples of it in the country. JFM in West Bengal is in a state of decline, with minimum or almost no livelihood opportunity accruing to the targeted communities through it. The communities have over the years lost interest in the forest protection and regeneration activities involved in the process and have in fact engaged in activities which have yielded income faster. This has also included theft and illegal trade of timber. Thus, JFM had operated in a space where it had tried to impose a moral responsibility on the poor people but had not provided the promised adequate and long-lasting economic benefits to them. Poor people depend on various sources for even their subsistence levels of income. These poor and needy forest fringe communities have over the years diversified their income earning opportunities, given the little income that accrues from each source. This study in two Blocks of the West Midnapore district tries to understand the sustainability of these livelihoods in the face of all their vulnerabilities and available capital along with a focus on the current status of JFM in not only the Arabari region but also other adjoining regions. The sustainability analysis is done using the UK Department for International Development (DFID) framework. The study also includes an analysis through gender perspective, with respect to the roles of men and women within the forest economy and also within the households. This helps in highlighting the need for policies which addresses specific needs and concerns of men and women.

Key words: usufruct rights, Joint Forest Management, community participation, Forest Protection Committees, livelihood opportunities, sustainability, gender perspective.

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Introduction Scheduled Tribes have been defined by the policy makers as those communities which have indications of primitive traits, distinctive culture, shyness of contact with the community at large, geographical isolation and backwardness. Scheduled Tribe population in India constitutes a numerical minority. However there is a significant diversity within them. The diversity reflects in the form of differences in languages, ecology surrounding them, physical features, size of the population, level of development and exposure to the modern world. According to the Report of the High Level Committee on Socio-Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities in India, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India, May 2014 the majority of the tribal population in India is spread over the states of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. According to this Report around 27.64 percent of the Scheduled Tribes inhabit the western part of the country, 12.41 percent in the north-eastern region, 5.31 percent in the southern part and 2.03 percent in the northern part of the country.

Over generations tribal people have exhibited dependence on forests for their livelihood and firewood needs and have protected those forests and their indigenous values. Different varieties of economic activities are carried out by the tribal communities as part of their livelihood earning initiatives. The major occupations of tribals include hill and plain cultivation, sal leaf plate making, sale of non-timber forest product, pastoral and cattle-herding, agricultural and non-agricultural labour, and sericulture. Collection of non-timber forest products and making a livelihood out of it form a significant part of the many livelihood sources of many tribal communities.

In spite of this mutually beneficial relationship between the forest fringe communities and the forests they depended on, there have been instances of conflicts between these people and the State since the colonial times with mostly the former being deprived of their rights over the forests and the forest products. It was only in 1988 that the forest policy saw a remarkable shift, with the new policy giving importance to the preservation of forests and the needs of the communities dependent on forests. The priority now was on the fuel wood, fodder, small timber and minor forest products needs of the tribal and minority communities dependent on forests. In the June, 1990 circular it was made clear by the government that the requirements and needs of the tribal communities are to be “treated as first charge� on forest produce. What was evident

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from this was the experience gathered from the Joint Forest Management (JFM) experiment in Arabari, which was carried out in the 1970s by A.K Banerjee, a divisional forest officer and silviculturist from south division in West Midnapore district of West Bengal by involving people from ten villages in Arabari region in protecting 1,250 hectares of totally degraded natural sal forest and plantations (Roy,1992). Though there was no mention of the term “joint forest management”, it gradually became prominent.

JFM came as a path breaking step towards participatory development of the natural resource which was so far under the draconian policies of the State. The primary objective of the JFM programme was to engage local communities in regenerating degraded forests. The purpose of regenerating the degraded forests was to meet the requirements of the locals in the form of need of firewood, fodder, small timber, over which the communities have “first charge”. JFM in fact had three main objectives: environmental: as evident from the goal of regenerating degraded forests and protecting them, economic: clear from the idea of providing the forest fringe communities with means of livelihood and efficient management of the local resources which is ensured because the problem of free-rider is solved through their collective action, and socio-political: this was present in the form of giving decision-making power to the local communities for forest use and also because people have the fundamental right to managing their local environment (Roy, 1992).

The core idea behind JFM remained same across all the states. In 1998, the central Ministry of Environment and Forests created a “JFM cell” for guiding the implementation of JFM across the entire country. A new set of guidelines was issued by this cell in 2000 and modifications in 2002.

JFM has now been adopted by all the states and the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands as the official approach to forest management in the country.

Along with JFM, came up the Forest protection Committees (FPCs) which were the institutions at the village level composed of the forest fringe community members and engaged in forest protection and management in collaboration with the government. Partnership also existed within the community. As of 2011, there were about 1,18,000 forest protection committees (FPC) across the country protecting about 22.93 million hectares of forests which is approximately a third of the land with the forest department in the country (Bahuguna. 2011). However, in spite of JFM being a promising venture to put an end to the long persisting conflicts between people and the

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government in the domain of management of forest resources, it had its own share of problems in terms of proper implementation. One of its main goals of providing a sustainable livelihood to the forest fringe communities has not been satisfactorily and adequately achieved. With the implementation of JFM, access of the community to forest products was restricted as a precondition for achieving one of the goals of JFM, which was to regenerate the degraded forests. This was one of the factors contributing to the beginning of a new struggle, for the poor.

Over the years after JFM implementation, problems have arisen in the form of those relating to the distribution of benefits among the users of forest and that between the users and the forest department.

This Paper attempts to focus on the sustainability of the livelihoods of the forest fringe communities, especially the tribal communities in the post-JFM situation, in the same place where it was first conceived of, that is, in Arabari region and also another region called the Nayagram region, close to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal. This Paper also discusses about the livelihoods which were available to the forest fringe people as a result of JFM. However, the sustainability analysis takes into consideration the UK Department for International Development (DFID) framework. Hence for understanding how sustainable the current livelihoods are, the vulnerabilities of these communities have also been examined.

The state where this study was conducted, that is West Bengal has no scheduled areas in it, but it has 5.1% of the country’s tribal population. While West Bengal has a total of 40 Scheduled Tribes (STs), out of these 40 STs , there are 9 tribal communities, whose population together form a little more than 90% of the total ST population of the State. These 9 communities are Santhal, Oraon, Munda, Bhumij, Kora, Mahali, Lodha/Kheria, Bhutia and Maipahariya. The tribe currently under study is the Santhal tribe. The tribe constitutes 54% of the tribal population of West Bengal (Census,2001). In West Bengal, the Scheduled Tribes have the highest representation in the districts of Jalpaiguri, Purulia, Dakshin Dinajpur, Paschim (West) Midnapore, and Darjeeling. The area under the current study is in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal. The research was conducted in six villages in the Arabari Reserve forest region of the Salboni block and three villages in the Nayagram block of the West Midnapore district.

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This study in the Arabari region is of importance because the implementation of JFM in this area is a pioneer in the state of West Bengal and the region has not been studied in terms of the performance of JFM in making livelihoods sustainable for the forest fringe communities, and also the livelihood situation for these communities after JFM started declining. Understanding how the people have coped after the conflict coming up in the benefit sharing aspects of the programme and what livelihoods have they opted for are areas which will give fair idea about how sustainable their current livelihoods are.

In addition to this section, this Paper has six more sections. The second section focuses on JFM as has been discussed in the relevant literatures so far. The third section explains the methodology in which this research was conducted. The fourth section on Livelihoods discusses both the livelihoods during and post-JFM era in Arabari. The next section explains the sustainability of the current livelihoods, with the penultimate section taking up a precise discussion of the vulnerabilities of these communities in Arabari and Nayagram regions. The final section consists of the conclusion along with the recommendations.

Joint Forest Management in Literature Vemuri (2008) observes that when India’s National Forest Policy came up in 1988, the central government laid down the broad guidelines of Joint Forest Management (JFM) which encouraged participation of local people in forest conservation. She also explains that forests provide not only livelihoods to these communities, but also the crucial subsistence needs of housing materials, food, medicine, fuel-wood, small timber and non-timber forest products.

The socioeconomic environment in West Bengal along with the dispersed yet large scale Sal (Shorea robusta) forests with good root stocks and coppice vigour had resulted in regenerating the assigned degraded forests. This was evident from the committed grassroots cadres of the Marxist government of the state of West Bengal, which played an important role in the successful achievement of the two main objectives of JFM, in certain regions of the State in the early nineties. They had ensured the involvement of the people in forest conservation through highly politicized Panchayats. Early incomes of the people were ensured through intermediate yields from non-wood forest products (NWFP) such as sal leaves and early harvests from short rotation coppice crops (Sharma, 1995).

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However, continuation of the interests of the community in this would require sustained incomes of these poor people. This is where JFM received a setback. Mukherjee (1995) discusses to ensure that sustained community participation continues in forest protection and management, what is necessary is meeting the livelihood needs of the communities. However, several scholars (Sarker and Das, 2008; Mukherjee, 1995; Dutta et al, 2004; Pattanaik and Dutta, 1997) have highlighted the not so impressive performance of JFM in providing an increase in income from legal forest products and forest wage income for the communities dependent on forests. The continued illegal felling of trees and thus, degradation of forests even after JFM got initiated could be attributed to the seasonal livelihood needs and food insecurity among the forest fringe communities, which were not met adequately by JFM. Sarker and Das (2006) have focused on the fact that for sustainability of the JFM system, immediate sustenance needs of the poor forest communities need to be met. D.N (2001) is of the view that various JFM experiments in India to institute village-level control over access to nontimber forest products (NTFP) have been proved difficult to implement and also leads to inequality. The better off sections and those who depend less on forests easily decide to set aside forest lands for regeneration. JFM though attempted to meet the needs of the poor first; they were the ones who got further marginalized.

Sarker and Das (2002) observed that Women Environment Development provided two main arguments- first was that the improvement of the status of women will assist the solution of environmental problems and second was that within environment, women’s sole participation will improve the project’s efficiency. The Gender and Development (GAD) perspective stresses on the importance of gender-sensitive planning for JFM to find ways for women to institutionalize their bargaining strength. But, in spite of these and women’s greater involvement in forest related activities of the community, the state JFM resolution of West Bengal has proved inadequate for ensuring their participation in community institutions.

Sarker (2009) argues that though JFM, which started with commitments to meet the needs of the poor, has failed to fulfill them. The sharing of benefits of commercial timber and bamboo products is discriminatory for the forest fringed communities in the areas where JFM has been implemented. This is more so because there is no national policy on the ratio of benefit sharing between community and the state.

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While JFM as a programme failed in providing sustainable livelihood options to the tribal people, the forest fringe communities have adapted to newer occupations with time and in fact, have diversified their income earning sources.

It is important to understand what the other livelihood opportunities besides NTFPs are, that have come up post JFM in the same region, in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal where JFM had originated. While the existing literature on JFM and its implementation focuses on the reasons for its achieved success and also gradual decline, the literature focuses less on the alternative opportunities of income earning, the forest fringe communities have gradually adopted to. Pati and Shit (2012) highlights through their study in Paschim (West) Midnapore district of West Bengal, the numerous ways in which the tribal people are dependent on forests for their livelihood sources and various other sources. Making of sal (Shorea robusta) leaf plates, growing back stead vegetables, selling eggs and bamboo crafts, making puffed rice, weaving mats, ropes are some of the livelihood activities practiced by women other than the NTFP collection activities. It is necessary to examine the sustainability of these livelihood earning opportunities to get an idea of the lives of these tribal people, and that can be understood only when these are seen with respect to the income they accrue, the needs that are getting satisfied by that income and the vulnerabilities within which these communities operate. Until there is a fair idea about the livelihood situation after the gradual decline of a much hyped policy aiming at the economic upliftment of these forest fringe communities, the current role of the government (Forest Department) and types of future interventions needed cannot be understood.

Methodology TTo achieve the goal of this paper, cross-sectional study was undertaken. Cross-sectional study refers to the studies carried out across a short period of time to estimate the prevalence of any outcome over a population by examining a cross-section of the population.

The study was conducted in two blocks of West Midnapore district of the state of West Bengal and they are the Salboni block and Nayagram block. In these two blocks, the Arabari region was chosen in Salboni block to understand the sustainability of the livelihoods post JFM, because it is in Arabari region that the first JFM experiment took place in the 1970s. The Nayagram block was

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chosen to understand the situation of JFM and post JFM livelihoods of a Block from the same district, with no place like Arabari in it.


 Sample Size TIn the Salboni block 2 forest beats were covered, namely Socio Beat and Arabari Beat. Two Forest Protection Committees (FPCs) from the Socio beat were studied, namely Sakhisol and Arabari-Socio FPCs. Three FPCs were studied from the Arabari beat, namely Ghagra, Nephurakhuerkhal and Buramara FPCs. In the Socio beat, the Sakhisol FPC is formed of 1 village and the Arabari-Socio FPC is formed of 15 villages. From among these 15 villages of the Arabari-Socio FPC, 2 villages, namely, Mohanto Raima and Ekdasol and the village Sakhisol of the FPC with the same name were studied. 63 households were studied in all from these three villages.

In the Arabari Beat, the Ghagra FPC is formed of 12 villages, the Nephurakheurkhal FPC is formed of one village with the same name and the Buramara FPC is also formed of one village with the same name. One village of the name Aatabanda from Ghagra FPC, and the villages Nephurakheurkhal and Buramara from FPCs with the same names were the ones studied from this beat. 30 households were studied in all from these three villages.

In the Nayagram beat, three FPCs were studied and they all belonged to one beat. The three FPCs studied, each was formed of one village and of the same name as that of the FPC. Each of these villages was studied. 30 households were studied in all from these three villages. The names of the FPCs and so of the villages were Dhansola, Shirishboni and Khanamuri.

The sample details have been summarized in Table 1.

Sampling Procedure The FPCs met the goal of the research by representing all three categories, tribal FPC, women headed FPC and non-tribal FPC. All the FPCs in the area were studied. In case of the Socio beat, random sampling was done for choosing the two villages out of the fifteen villages of the ArabariSocio FPC, and since Sakhisol FPC which is an all-women FPC, consists of one village, all the

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members were interviewed. Sakhisol has 43 members. The two villages which were chosen from the Arabari-Socio FPC were Ekdasol and Mohanto Raima, both being tribal households with 35 and 18 households respectively. From each of these two villages 10 members were interviewed, along with few other non-member households.

For the Arabari beat, random sampling was done for choosing one village from the twelve villages of the Ghagra FPC. The village chosen was Aatabandha, a tribal village. The other two villages formed the remaining FPCs from this beat. Therefore the two other villages were also studied. They were the Nephurakheurkhal FPC and the Buramara FPC, the former being a mixture of tribal and non-tribal members and the latter being completely tribal FPC. In the Nayagram block, all the chosen three FPCs were tribal FPCs. Here the FPCs were composed of one village each. So, FPC members from each village were studied.

Table 1: Details of the Sample Salboni

Nayagram

Beats

Beat 1 (Socio Beat)

Beat 2 (Arabari Beat)

Beat (Nayagram)

FPC

2 FPCs (Sakhisol and

3 FPCs (Ghagra,

3 FPCs (Dhansola, Shrishboni

Arabari-Socio FPCs)

Buramara and

and Khanamuri)

Nephurakheurkhal FPCs) Village

Arabari-Socio FPC

Ghagra FPC comprises of

Each of the FPCs comprises

comprises of 15 villages. Of

12 villages. Of these 12,

one village of the same

these 15, FPC members

FPC members from one

name. Therefore, the FPC

from two villages were

village were interviewed.

members from each village

interviewed.

were interviewed.

Sakhisol FPC comprises of

Buramara and

42 members. All the

Nephurakheurkhal FPCs

members were interviewed.

comprise of one village each and members were interviewed from each of these villages with the same name as the FPCS.

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Livelihoods The most important and fundamental institution working in the case of JFM is a Forest Protection Committee (FPC). FPCs also represent some of the stakeholders of this policy. Therefore, the understanding of livelihood opportunities under JFM needs understanding of FPCs. The Forest Protection Committees (FPCs) are the ones which came up post the 1990 resolution of the Government of India (GOI). After the order was issued for JFM by the GOI in 1990, the Government of West Bengal came up with an order to modify its PFM (Participatory Forest Management) order issued in 1987 to JFM in South West Bengal. Through this resolution every family of South West Bengal living near the forest patches is eligible to become a member of a Forest Protection Committee (FPC). The FPCs composed of members from these forest fringe communities were the ones involved in forest protection activities as part of JFM policy. In exchange for their involvement in forest protection the FPC members were entitled to receive 25 per cent of the net sale of timber subject to conditions decided by the Forest Department and the right to collect fallen twigs, grass, fruits (except cashews), flowers, seeds without paying royalties to the government (Roy, 1992). The rights of the tribals over the forest products continued to remain in this way.

This paper studies eight FPCs in all from both the Blocks of Salboni and Nayagram. While in the Salboni Block, the Ghagra FPC is the oldest one having formed as early as in 1991; the Arabari Socio FPC is the latest one of the five, having formed in 1997. The remaining three have been formed in the following years- Nephurakeurkhal (1992),Sakhisole (1993), Buramara (1994). Of the FPCs studied in Nayagram, the oldest one is the Khanamuri FPC formed in 1992. The other two were formed in 1993. The Shirishboni FPC was initially together with a part of another FPC named Jadukota, and they together were the Shirishboni-Jadukota FPC formed in 1993.

However, in 2001, these two FPCs separated and formed two FPCs, protecting their respective forest parts. The reason for their separation was the easiness the separation would bring to the process of protection of their respective forests.

Over time FPCs in the Salboni and Nayagram Mandal of West Midnapore have become redundant in terms of their participation as agents of forest protection from the community side.

The villagers rarely attend meetings which FPC members are supposed to attend as part of JFM.

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The villagers in the Salboni Block are of the view that there is hardly any initiative for forest protection. The Beat Officer of the two Beats of the Salboni Block has himself admitted that initiative is lacking on the parts of both the stakeholders. At least in the Nayagram Block, villagers are aware of their responsibilities as part of JFM but they admit lack of initiative from both the community as well as forest department to undertake forest protection at any time of the day, let alone at night.

JFM and Livelihood Opportunities Traditionally collection and sale of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) from forests constitute one of the most important sources of livelihoods for the tribals. The gums, fruits, nuts, flowers, leaves, seeds, fallen leaves and fallen twigs from the forests form a significant part of the livelihood opportunities available to the forest fringe communities.

If explained according to the DFID framework, dependence on these natural capitals has been an integral part of the livelihood initiatives of these communities. So, regeneration of the non-timber forest products through the involvement of these communities were considered to be an ideal option and this was planned by the policy of Joint Forest Management.

In the Salboni Block of the West Midnapore district, while the major livelihood under JFM has been collection of NTFPs such as fuel wood, sal leaves, sal seeds, flowers, mushroom, dry leaves, resins, nuts, grasses, honey, this collection work has always been done by women from the tribal households and even in the past it was done by women as a part of JFM. The villagers hardly remember any FPC meetings being held in the recent past or any monetary benefit from felling accruing from the Forest Department to them as part of the JFM initiative. Whatever share of benefits from felling they received arrived to them a decade ago, following which, there were no more shares. This was the issue which was highlighted in two of the five villages in this Block studied. Among these two villages, namely Nephurakheurkhal and Aatabandha in the Nephurakheurkhal and Ghagra FPC respectively, while the former has a significant tribal population, the latter is a completely tribal village. The remaining three villages namely, Mohanto Raima, Ekdasol

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and Buramara last received some money from felling three years back. The situation is no different in the Nayagram Block. The traditional occupations of this Block include rope making from sabai grass- a grass form found typically in the Nayagram region of West Midnapore used in making ropes, puffed rice making, sale of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). These have continued over generations. JFM had given them access to forest products like fire wood, sal leaves and seeds, mushrooms, mohua flowers in exchange for their forest protection and regeneration activities. However, none of the three villages which have been studied has members who remember being part of the JFM. When asked, they do remember being members of FPCs, but JFM is history. Since all the three villages within this Block are tribal villages, truth is more stark here, by establishing the failure of the JFM scheme, and thus, resulting in its logical decline. A feature of this Block, which differentiates it from Salboni Block, is that the people are relatively more aware of the details of the JFM policy. A major reason for this can be the presence of a non-governmental organization (NGO) Amjam Radha Madhab Social Welfare Society, headed by the Principal of the Nayagram High School, in that area, involving the local youth in its activities. The latest information about JFM as an initiative they have in their lives is that the last felling took place in Nayagram region some 16 years back and they had then been told about Rs.40,000, which was fixed in the name of their FPC. Now it has amounted up to Rs.2,00,000.

In spite of people knowing their rights and duties, nobody questions or rather are in a position to reach anybody to question about their responsibilities and share. Thus, though the villagers in the Dhansola village know about some Rs.2,00,000, they also know that asking the Forest Department for their shares is futile. According to them, the dirty politics which are being played in rural Bengal by the party in power and the parties in opposition, allows many middlemen and politicians to escape with their money, with them being in no position to ask for it, let alone question the people with power. Though two decades ago when JFM started, people’s dependence on forests for different types of livelihood options was quite high, it has now ceased to be an option. According to Sujeet Datta of the NGO Amjam Radhamadhob Welfare Society working in the Nayagram region, people don’t have any resource on which they can fall back at the times of crisis. According to him the villagers are poor and can’t afford morals. He had

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taken the example of a participant marginal farmer and had explained a poor farmer of the village Dhansola, earns just Rs.600 at the end of each month from the little bit of agriculture he does. Now, if someday someone offers him some money in exchange for some expensive wood from the forest, he has every reason to agree to the proposal.

Can a person who is already hunger and poverty stricken afford morals or can he remember his responsibilities of forest protection when he cannot feed his own children?

This is in fact the story of every other poor in this country.

It can be said that ever since JFM has been introduced, what the tribal people have gained is very less in comparison to what they have lost over the years. In fact they continue to lose every year due to the various vulnerabilities they are prone to and their current livelihoods continue to suffer.

While people have become more and more detached from forests, there has been a gradual shift to professions which are far from being associated with forests.

Nevertheless, dependence on forests by these forest fringe communities has not become completely a thing of the past. However, it cannot be denied that there are situations where there is indifference from the Forest Department, and there are several instances of timber-smuggling in which the villagers have engaged in the hope of instantly gaining large sums of money. Also villagers are in dire need of increasing the area under cultivation; their local knowledge which had helped them to survive till now is at risk and is likely to reduce with time with changes taking place in their natural, social as well as political environment.

While no special initiatives or government schemes for employment of the people are available here, majority of the people presently earn a living through various unskilled activities. These unskilled activities are generally in a sector in which they have never worked. Thus, there has been a shift in the occupational structure of the forest fringe communities over the years.

Current Livelihood Opportunities A few varieties of livelihood opportunities have come up in the current times on which these tribal people depend on. This is more so because people can engage in varied

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income earning activities only if they have the required skill set. According to the Capabilities Approach of Amartya Sen, capabilities are the various freedoms of any individual to enjoy the things a person values. With the complete absence of the required capabilities or any mechanisms to train the people or to make use of the potential resources or local talents for enabling the people to get a “decent” income earning job, what the poor people in the regions under study are currently engaged in are mostly the jobs of agricultural labourers. By “decent” here it means an income which is enough to sustain and meet the needs of all the family members adequately and should be above the subsistence level. Working as labourers they can manage an income which is not even enough for subsistence, let alone can be called “decent”. This not only degrades their inner potential but also a large section of the youth population becomes redundant with their inherent urge to work gradually fading away.

Across all the five villages studied in the Salboni Block, the predominant occupation of the people is working as labourers in the agricultural fields of either large farmers in the adjacent villages or as labourers migrating and getting engaged in masonry activities in the nearest cities.

The main crops of these regions are rice and potatoes. Besides these two crops, there are other vegetables which are grown from season to season. The mass employment season for the agricultural labourers therefore occurs in certain months of the year. For example, the labourers get work during the months of November and December, which are the months when rice is harvested and potatoes are planted. All the big farmers employ the labourers for paddy crop harvesting and preparing the soil beds for planting the potato plants. The next major season of employment of agricultural labourers are the months of February, March and April, during which potatoes are harvested and JulyAugust when paddy is planted. So, there is six months of agricultural labour work available as the livelihood strategy for the poor households. They, in fact, have to compete with each other for getting hold of the labour works from the large farmers.

Besides agriculture, it is the masonry activities, in which these people are mainly engaged. It is as unskilled labour as in construction work. Other than these labouring jobs, the tribal people are also engaged in labouring activities for the Forest

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Department. Activities with the Forest Department includes among others, working in the nursery, in the main office and in the guest house for its maintenance. In fact working as labourer has become the primary occupation of the people in all the villages in both the Blocks Salboni and Nayagram.

Income from various livelihood opportunities is so less that the tribal people have no choice but diversify their income earning opportunities and try earning from different sources. For example, dependence on forests for achieving their livelihood objectives continues to be there, besides the other occupations. Dry leaves, fire wood, sal leaves, mushrooms, Banglar aloo (a form of root typical to the forests in the Salboni region), sal seeds, mohua flowers are some of the products from the forests on which the forest fringe communities have depended traditionally and still continue to depend. It is this natural capital which enables them to get some money for sure, at the end of the day, besides, their work as a labourer anywhere, for which they might not be assured payment. Most participants who work as labourers admitted that they were not paid daily and often they received payment of ten-fifteen days at once. This created problems for these poor people with a habit of improper savings. They often end up spending more having received a large sum of money at one time and almost nothing for each day of laborious work. Men who are alcoholic usually end up spending most of their wages in the local alcohols or mohua (juice from mohua flowers).

Sabai grass- a grass found typically in the Nayagram region of West Midnapore used in making ropes, considered to be an important natural capital of the forest fringe communities in the Nayagram Block, is not found in the region of the Block covered by this study. The farmers are of the view that in the present times they have failed to make use of this natural resource. Selling home-made puffed rice is another common livelihood strategy of this region. Besides these, there are certain other occupations of the people which have come up over the years. Animal husbandry, poultry farming, working as watchmen and security guards, as traffic constables in Kolkata, care-taking of the Forest Department guest house are some of the livelihood opportunities that have come up in recent times and these works fall out of the major categories of the livelihood strategies discussed so far. These works have come up gradually over the years, with mostly men of

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these forest fringe households moving out of the boundaries of their villages and the adjoining villages to find work elsewhere, with the hope of coming across better income earning opportunities. For a female participant of the Aatabanda village in the Salboni Block, her husband’s occupation makes her stand out among the fellow women in her village. She explained how her husband who initially used to work in Chandrakona Road of Midnapore, found job as a traffic constable in Kolkata, According to her, after the Poriborton (change of government at the State), Didi (referred to the Chief Minister of West Bengal- Miss Mamata Banerjee) created the jobs of civil police and thus many people were offered jobs. For her, this job of her husband helped in a considerable shift out of the clutches of poverty. She is now relieved that she no longer has to seek help from friends and neighbours, which she was often forced to do by the poverty; and how insecurity was ridden off to a considerable extent with the increase in the family income after her husband migrated to Kolkata. Another participant of Nephurakheurkhal village has a poultry farm of his own at his home in the village. The poultry is owned by him and his two brothers. He earns his share of Rs10,000 from the poultry. He also owns land and thus earns income by growing paddy and the seasonal crops. A yield of around 25 quintals of potatoes is obtained from around 10 kathas or 0.84 acres of land of planted potato crops. A very good yield of potato, according to him, is when around 50-60 quintals of the crop is obtained from a bigha of the land from 1-1.5 quintals of seeds. In his view, a very good yield of potato is quite rare. It is totally dependent on rain. There is no irrigation facility available at all. This proves that even large farmers and comparatively well to do households also lack a proper means of irrigation.

Even comparatively better off households are not completely shielded from the various crises present in the region. Properly targeted interventions are necessary to address individual vulnerabilities of these communities.

Sustainability of the Current Livelihoods For a livelihood to be categorized as sustainable what is essential to understand is its resilience- that is its ability to recover from shocks and unforeseen circumstances creating stresses and move towards enhancement of resources and assets. The

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Sustainable Livelihoods definition as provided by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), in 1999 goes, A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from shocks and stresses and maintain and enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, whilst not undermining the natural resource base (DFID, 1999a).

This definition of sustainable livelihoods becomes important to understand the appropriateness of it to the livelihood opportunities, now available to the people currently under study. What is necessary to understand is whether the current livelihoods are providing with more income, increased well-being, reduced vulnerability, food security, sustainable use of the natural resource base of the region?

The livelihoods opportunities and strategies discussed so far includes a wide variety of activities- that of agriculture labourer, minimum or backyard agriculture, dependence on forests, animal husbandry, and different types of livelihoods that have come up over the years which involve migration out of the village.

Poor people make use of numerous livelihood opportunities to make a living. So, to understand their sustainability it is not possible to take them one at a time. At certain instances, a farmer who has a few kathas of land does the work of agricultural labourer at a bigger farmer’s field as well, besides his wife engaging in leaf plate making and agricultural labour. So, their sustainability cannot be assessed by taking each one of them, at a time. What needs to be understood is whether they are together meeting the minimum basic needs of the households considering them as livelihood strategies. All the occupations currently practiced by these people together do not provide them subsistence level of income, let alone expenses on health and education.

Except for as few as one household per village who have managed some work from the Panchayat, no one can be said to be sure of what is going to happen to them the next day, given that they don’t do any permanent work but depend on large farmers, remittances from cities and on market.

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Women engage in a number of livelihood strategies. The work of collection of the NTFP and their marketing is mostly considered to be the work of women in these villages.

Gendered division of work has led to these works to be considered particular to the domain of women. With women also being hired as labourers, they need to negotiate workloads both inside and outside the households. This had been the reality even when JFM provided legal access to the natural capital within the forest. This is also true for the current livelihoods. Often the women respondents were of the view that they need uninterrupted and substantial amount of money to support their households as men of the family were mostly alcoholic. With there being discrimination in wages paid to the women agricultural labourers, the burden on them increases. Thus, the need for sustainable livelihood opportunities for women is evident. But what they are currently engaged in does not satisfy either of the preconditions for a sustainable livelihood, as provided by the DFID framework.

Current Vulnerabilities of the Forest Fringe Communities The current situation in the Arabari and Nayagram region of the West Midnapore district showcases the inadequacy of the State JFM resolution, resulting in disinterest of communities in participating in the community institutions and processes like JFM. People hardly remember the benefits they received from JFM.

When the various

processes within JFM were seen to lose importance, appropriate measures were not taken.

JFM as a scheme has not rendered any secured livelihood source to these people and thus, people have, over the years, taken to different occupations. There has been a shift of these communities dwelling in forests and adjoining areas to occupations which have never been associated with them traditionally. But with these shifts there have not been any programs or schemes of the government which would meet their changing needs and train them in a manner which would help them in adapting to new jobs and environments. Also, this shift has resulted in the local knowledge of these communities becoming redundant. Thus, the pursuit of “development� could not make a community based natural resource management process work. Neither could it help promote the livelihoods of the people by using their local knowledge. In the current times, in spite of

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a change of government in West Bengal, the much awaited poriborton (change) could not bring any remarkable change in the lives of the people. Thus, much of the human capital can be said to be getting wasted as they are moving into unskilled labour jobs.

The vulnerabilities, within which these communities operate, come mostly under seasonality and shocks. Seasonality refers to shifting seasonal constraints and opportunities. It refers to seasonal shifts in prices, employment opportunities and food availability. Since these change from season to season, they affect the poor in a variety of ways, particular to different seasons. Shocks occur suddenly and can destroy the assets of the people directly. Shocks can even make people abandon their homes and dispose of their assets like land, prematurely, as part of their coping strategies in the face of such uncertainties and insecurities. Shocks can include among others human health shocks, natural shocks, economic shocks, conflicts, and crop and livestock health shock. The inherent delicacies of the current livelihoods of the poor people make them more prone to these stresses and also make it difficult for them to cope with these stresses.

Seasonality strikes when employment opportunities are available just during the planting and harvesting seasons of crops because members of most households work as daily labourers. The main crops being paddy and potato, the options for this also are reduced.

For them who work as daily labourers, work availability is the highest in these seasons. In the other seasons they have to go to different places in search of work. The absence of proper implementation of much hyped programs like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is felt in these cases. Majority of the sample studied showcased that with lack of skills, knowledge, capitals, these communities are not ready for new occupations that can ensure them a better living standard. Further, the fluctuation of prices of fertilizers and pesticides are also a cause of concern for both small and large farmers. There is no mechanism through which seeds at subsidized prices could be made available to the tribal farmers here. However, the Government, both at Centre and the State advertises of the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) at which seeds are made available to the poor farmers.

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Shocks in the form of repeated attack of droughts followed by scarcity of drinking water and irrigation water even for large farmers during the long summers, and pest attacks on crops (especially on the main crop- paddy) also contribute to the vulnerabilities of these communities. Agriculture is one of the main sources of livelihoods of the tribals other than dependence on forest based resources. Land holding sizes are as such small in West Bengal. It is smaller for tribal farmers, with them having just enough land to practice subsistence agriculture. Therefore, absolute scarcity of water provides tremendous setbacks to their farming practices as well as food availability. In the name of irrigation what they have are small pumps, called “mini� by the villagers, provided either by the Panchayat or the Forest Department at various instances. Most villages have one or two such pumps fitted in the middle of the village. Since tribal farmers have very little land holdings and most of them practice agriculture at their backyards, provision of water to their fields becomes a real difficult task from the limited water sources at their disposal.

Further the wells in the villages dry up with time, given the irregular rainfall. If rainfall betrays or the minimum water available also finishes (which usually lasts till the Bengali month of Phalgun, that is, till February after monsoons in September), they have to go in search of water. What this means is that people face the insecurity in terms of getting something as basic as water. This affects not only their livelihood strategies but even their day to day life.

Vulnerabilities with respect to gender perspective The vulnerabilities the women are exposed to, require special attention given their different role within the forest economy. The first FPC in 1972 was started with 618 male members and it had achieved tremendous success. But with time, perceptions regarding the role of women as protectors of forest can be the same as men has been accepted.

Gendered division of work entails collection of NTFP by women. Hence association of women with forests and forest resources is more in comparison to men. In fact, women led FPCs came up because of this. It can be said to be a reflection of the ideas Women, Environment and Development (WED) and Gender and Development (GAD). The former had the argument that women by virtue of gendered division of work engages in gathering of fuel wood, and fodder, while men engages in cultivation of crops for profit,

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women’s participation will improve projects. The latter highlights how gender-sensitive planning for JFM can institutionalize women’s bargaining power (Sarker and Das, 2002).

Thus, women FPCs came up with the idea that with woman deriving so much benefit from forests which is ultimately benefitting their households, they will take special interest in protecting their sources of capital. Further, they can also bargain for receiving the benefits they are entitled to get under JFM because of collective strength.

The reality in Arabari and Nayagram is quite different now. Sakhisol, the women-FPC consisting of 43 women members has mostly poor widows who faintly remember being part of this scheme as its members. Some of them attend meetings which are held once in three months now. They recall having received a meagre sum of thousand rupees from felling, almost a decade ago and that was the last time they received any benefit till now.

What remains now is going to the forests for collecting the various forest products (natural capital) to be sold in the market (mostly done by them) or to be used at home.

While women did household work along with collection of NTFP during the initial years of implementation of JFM, this continues even now with women having to take up labour work to supplement family income. This work of labourer takes up their entire day with them having to perform household work early in the morning before going to work and doing the same after coming back. This strenuous work levels take a toll on their physical health also. Further, they are not paid equal wages as men. Most women labourers are paid Rs.38-40 less than what is paid to the men. What this means is that for the same level of work in the fields, while women are paid Rs.110-120, men are paid Rs. 160-170 and even Rs.180. It should not be forgotten that this work is an addition to the already existing household work done by women.

Further under JFM these communities being FPC members had access to the NTFP, but since protection by communities are almost not being practiced, and there is large scale theft of the timber, the forest officials doubt the villagers and forbid them from accessing these resources. In the process the poor and the innocent people suffer and the repercussions of this are worse for women with them having to procure large logs of wood from places miles away from their villages instead from nearby forests.

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Conclusion Since JFM practices hardly exist among the community members as well as the Forest Department in both Salboni and Nayagram Blocks of the district, the livelihood opportunities which was made available by JFM constitutes in only the memories of the people.

Over the years the tribal and the other forest dwelling communities have shifted to a number of occupations beyond their traditional knowledge and known territories. In the absence of any initiatives so far which would promote development of the skills of these people and use of the available resources, the human capital in not only these tribal areas but many such areas of the country are suffering.

Dependence on forest products for livelihoods continues to be a feature among these forest fringe communities. But they have a risk attached to it. Accesses to these are restricted. This is what JFM has done. While not only does the benefit of 25 per cent from sales out of felling no longer accrues to these communities in the study regions, the access to the non-timber forest products have also become restricted to these people.

This has taken the form of women who have traditionally been engaged in firewood collection, engaging in stealing of even dry twigs and branches, as men are now easily caught by forest officials if they go for firewood collection. However, under JFM they are entitled to such firewood collection.

Some livelihood opportunities have come up in recent times among these community members. However, they mostly involve working as a labourer. Labouring activities are such that both men and women engage in these. Further, work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is almost insignificant in these two areas. This has also resulted in the need for men and women going in search for new labouring jobs every day, far and near.

The livelihoods that have come up in the current times for these people are far from being sustainable. They don’t even meet the subsistence needs, let alone being a provider in the long term. One of the greatest proofs of this is the fact that these poor

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people depend on a variety of livelihood options for earning their day to day living.

Income from neither of the sources is large enough to last a day, let alone a month.

The constituents of the vulnerabilities within which the forest fringe communities of these two Blocks operate includes the boundaries to non-timber forest products access that have been created by JFM, the repeated droughts attacking the region, pest attacks ravaging crops, absence of irrigation facilities even for large farmers given the scarcity of water, high prices of fertilizers and inputs, the lack of skills which make negotiation with higher paying jobs difficult for these communities, and difficult adaptations to new jobs, given the traditional dependence on forest resources by these communities.

Therefore there is a need to think beyond the existing policy. It is high time to observe the fact that JFM which was deemed to be a path breaking policy in history has gone wrong in the very region where it began. To make people the partners in development process, it is necessary that those people get shares of the fruits of the development.

The tribal people prefer their traditional practices and knowledge. The need for migrating out not only makes their traditional knowledge redundant but also makes them more vulnerable with them having to face new conditions outside of their known territories. Therefore, measures should be such that they are directed towards improvement of the traditional livelihoods, along with trainings and developments which make them suitable for better jobs. If social entrepreneurship ventures are taken up with a view to use the rich forest resources in a sustainable manner, then benefits can be rendered to these forest fringe communities along with conservation practices of resources.

Provision of proper water supply for their households as well as their crops, good houses with toilet and bathrooms can be interventions which help these communities get some kind of stability and security.

The issues of poor irrigation facilities need intervention as soon as possible. Government interventions are necessary in the form of increasing the water availability through different measures. If implementation of NREGS is properly taken care of, then digging

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of ponds as a work under NREGS can be promoted. This is more needed given the fact that it is a rain fed area. In this way irrigation facilities can be extended in these villages, besides creating some jobs.

In sum, this paper has tried to highlight the areas which need government intervention in post joint forest management scenario, besides portraying the current scenario. It tries to draw the attention to the contentious issues post the gradual decline of a much hyped policy. Since a policy which attempted two significant goals have declined, there is need for policies which not only addresses the damages already taken place but also comes with a new and innovative perspective to meet the needs of the forest fringe communities.

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Editorial Board Co-ordinator: Shreya Dixit Editors: Abhay Yadav, Abhishek Acharya, Akheela Ashraf, Ashwin Jangalapalli, Gopal Gajbhiye, Krishna Teja Inapudi, Rajasindhura Aravalli, Rajeev Agur, and Yeshwanth Kumar

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