Conflicts in Joint Forest Management

Abstract

"The paper attempts to document the experiences of Seva Mandir in the field of JFM and the various conflicts that arose in the process. These conflicts recounted here illustrate: - Firstly, the constraints to community based natural resource management options such as JFM at the level of policy formulation as well as implementation that fails to address issues like encroachment and boundary disputes. - Secondly they bring to the fore the limitations of a framework like JFM at the level of the community itself due to conflicts arising between external players like the forest department and the FPC or between two or more FPCs. - Thirdly, Capacity and leadership development in the FPC for management of the developed resources can get weakened sometimes due to intra-institutional conflicts triggered by politics or erratic benefit sharing mechanisms."