| | |
Untitled Document
In recent decades, deforestation and watershed detoriation has progressed rapidly
due to decreasing jhum fallow periods, timber demand from urban centers in India
and Bangladesh, and land clearing by local and migrant people. Illegal logging
and forest conversion is made easier where tenurial rights over forest are weak
or unclear. This lack of clarity is often linked to an absence of forest mapping,
demarcation and registration, as well as bye-laws and policies that are conflicting
or ambiguous and constantly being challenged by private sector interests, government
agencies and even within the community themselves. Since its independence, the
Government of India has attempted to establish an integrated set of National Environmental
Policies regarding the administration of forest land. These policies relate mainly
to the forests of peninsula India which are mainly Government owned. Yet the forests
of North East, India, present their own unique needs and problems. Perhaps no
where is this exemplified as much as in the realm of community based forest management
where the major proportion of forest in the hilly regions are under the control
and management of Indigenous Community Institutions (ICIs). Yet, these ICIs are
under growing pressure and receive little external support or recognition. In
the above background, Community Forestry International (CFI) has been engaged
to formulate recommendations for enabling legal frameworks and programme strategies
to facilitate community based conservation. Over the past 4 years, CFI and its
alliance comprising of the Forest Departments, Scientists and Senior Professional
Foresters has been exploring the development of policies and programmes that have
the capacity to support Community Forest Management in North East India. This
Alliance has sought to create an institutional framework and catalyze a process
that will allow State Policies makers in the North East to discuss new policies
and programme mechanisms that respond to the unique historical and socio cultural
conditions existing in this region. This initiative is guided by the Working Group
on Community Forestry Management in North East India whose members are drawn from
the Officials, NGOs, and Academic Institutions of all seven North Eastern States.
| |
| |