Session 1. 9. A.

Over the last few decades, many countries around the globe have tried different ways to incorporate local communities into forest management and conservation activities. Protected areas in India have had significant impacts on local communities, primarily through the physical removal of people. The indigenous Soliga tribal community has been living in the forest for centuries, and they are known as the people of the bamboo. In the case of Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve (BRT) a protected area where Soligas reside and are dependent on the forest for livelihood and subsistence needs. Efforts to integrate local communities in the management and enhance community benefits from the forests have been undertaken, including participatory resource monitoring, value addition for forest products, and co-management under the policy Forest Rights Act.

The Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 was used to empower forest-dependent communities with the right to access forests for their well-being. Our work has facilitated the provisioning of forest rights to 77 Gramasabhas (decentralized community governance system), which includes 83 villages and 5433 families with 21,732 members, and 2007 households have received cultivation rights. These two accomplishments are important milestones and created history under the protected area regime in India. To develop an inclusive co-management plan, ten Gramasabha workshops have been conducted, in which around 1200 members participated. Meetings were focused on encouraging the community to develop community-led co-management plans for conservation and livelihood enhancements under FRA.

They felt that Lantana camara (invasive species) spread was a major threat to the forest. Control of traditional forest fires is contributing to canopy fires and litter fires would help us to conserve biodiversity. The community felt that they needed to strengthen Grama sabha at the village level under the FRA and cooperation from the forest department and other stakeholders. We follow an enterprise-based conservation model to address some of the biodiversity conservation issues with community participation.

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of India, 2006 (hereafter Forest Rights Act or FRA, is a landmark legislation that seeks to rectify historical injustices experienced by the forest-dwelling communities by recognizing rights to forest access and use. Despite its slow and staggered implementation, studies have shown that FRA implementation has led to significantly increased household incomes, particularly in the eastern part of Maharashtra, where communities have begun to exercise their community rights to manage, harvest, and trade forest products. However, while evidence suggests tangible economic benefits, there remains a gap in understanding the intra-household level implications of FRA, especially concerning gender dynamics. Therefore, a nuanced understanding of the gendered impacts of the Act is essential to ensure its holistic implementation. To address this gap, we conducted empirical research in Maharashtra’s Amravati district, a tribal-dominated area reported witnessing increased forest-based incomes post-FRA implementation. Through comprehensive household-level surveys and in-depth interviews, we collected detailed data on the intra-household level impacts of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), including key indicators of individual and household well-being such as poverty levels, women’s labor force participation and empowerment. Our findings reveal high women's labor force participation post-FRA, however, their labor is undermined and undervalued, leading to gender-based wage disparities and limiting women's bargaining power over household income. Based on these insights, we propose gender-sensitive reforms for FRA implementation to address disparities and ensure equitable distribution of benefits. Overall, our study emphasizes the importance of gender-sensitive approaches in realizing FRA's transformative potential for attaining socially just and sustainable outcomes.

Weak land rights is one of the leading causes of tropical deforestation. The department of Caqueta in the Colombian Amazon has led the country in hectares of deforested land in recent years, and has been impacted heavily by the internal conflict for the last several decades. Due to the conflict and the difficulty of collecting up to date land data in rural areas, data on land tenure and land prices are inaccurate and outdated. This research took a multi-pronged approach by collecting both quantitative data on land parcels, tenure type and prices, as well as perceptions on tenure security and land use decision-making processes. Data was collected through 450 surveys, 109 individual interviews with both men and women, as well as through three focus groups with women leaders in Caqueta. Data collection took place from March 2021 to March 2024. Surveys and interviews were primarily carried out by local partners. The focus group methodology was co-designed with the author and Corpomanigua, a local organization focusing on the cultivation of a dignified life, human rights and gender equality in the department of Caqueta. Preliminary results have found that women have less secure land rights than men, although those who have experienced a previous displacement were more likely to perceive their land tenure rights as insecure regardless of gender. Women are also more likely to value conservation and the cultivation of a range of native Amazon species than men. Causes of insecure land tenure include location of farm, previous forced displacement, informal land tenure holdings, and the lack of land tenure policy implementation.

India’s Forest Rights Act intends to recognize management rights on traditional forest resources. How states are intervening to facilitate management of recognized Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights has remained under-researched. We study India’s two relatively successful states in recognizing CFR rights – Maharashtra and Odisha. We explore how these states have intervened to enable post-recognition forest management activities. We construct a longitudinal case study of official documents issued by these states. We analyze these documents using thematic analysis. Covering 2012 till 2024, Maharashtra has issued 44 government resolutions, whereas Odisha has only prepared a draft protocol for facilitating management plans post-recognition of CFR.
Our analysis shows that Maharashtra has tried to enable the constitution of village-level CFR Management Committees and the preparation of Conservation and Management Plans (CMP). Its strategies varied from financing non-government organizations to assisting villages in preparing CMP to focus directly on the villages. Further, for monitoring the implementation of those CMP, strategies varied in how they intended to constitute village, block, and district-level institutional structures led by government actors. During this period, financing additional manpower in selected blocks and districts was consistently maintained.
On the other hand, analysis of the draft protocol shows that Odisha has designed and implemented an innovative state-sponsored scheme, namely the Mo Jungle Jami Yojana (MJJY), since August 2023, to expedite facilitating post-CFR management, among other interventions. The MJJY creates block and state-level institutions. Moreover, it has also created an enabling policy environment for proactively engaging with credible civil society organizations to facilitate the CFR management processes at the district level. It plans to strategically build the capacities of concerned stakeholders, including the local communities, to develop and implement CFR Management Plans in selected villages on a pilot basis.
Our analysis shows that even when the Forest Rights Act does not mandate any such action to enable local communities to facilitate commoning in the post-CFR recognition phase, the states can initiate enabling strategies, though following different mechanisms. These results indicate policy learning among state-level government actors on enabling commoning, implying that commoning is likely to take shape slowly out of strategic trials and errors at the state level.