Community Forest Management

There is enough evidence, globally, and within India, that community forest management provides better livelihood and ecological outcomes. In India, inclusive governance of forest resources already has a robust legal underpinning – in the form of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) enacted in 2006 and the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996.

Several initiatives, from across the country, show that communities are successfully managing their forest resources for sustainable enterprise development, food security, and forest regeneration. But these have been highly localised. It is time that we scale up these measures to improve management of our forests, ensure food security, particularly of marginalised communities and improve their livelihood opportunities. For this, community forest management should become a key component of India’s forest governance.

Our community forestry programme focuses on scaling-up the Community Forest Rights through research and advocacy. At the same time, we will also work to promote sustainable business models from community-managed forests.