Forests People and Power : The Political Ecology of Reform in South Asia

ISBN-13: 9781844073474 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 394 str.

Oliver Springate-Baginski; Piers M. Blaikie

Opis

Forests and forest lands around the world are a source of livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people. Contests over control and use of these forest resources are increasingly acute, and nowhere are they more intense than in South Asia. Although state forest administration is recorded in the earliest historical texts of the region, since the colonial period forest departments have extended and intensified scientific forest management in order to generate greater flows of timber and revenue, constructing policy in terms of colonial and later national development rather than as serving the public good. The impact on the use local people make of the forest for their livelihoods has been so negative that persistent civil unrest has ensued in many areas.

In recent decades participatory approaches to forest management have been introduced around the world, and this book assesses their implementation in the highly politicized environments of India and Nepal. The book critically examines the policy, implementation processes and causal factors affecting livelihood impacts. Considering narratives and field practice, using data from over sixty study villages with over one thousand household interviews, as well as key actors in policymaking at all levels, the book demonstrates why particular field outcomes have occurred and why policy reform often proves so difficult.

Research findings on which the book is based are already influencing policy in India and Nepal, and the research and analysis have great relevance to forestry management in a wide range of countries

Spis treści

Introduction: Setting Up Key Policy Issues in Participatory Forest Management * Part I: Key Issues and Approaches * Annexation, Struggle and Response: Forest, People and Power in India and Nepal * Understanding the Policy Process * Actors and their Narratives in Participatory Forest Management * Understanding the Diversity of Participatory Forest Management Livelihood and Poverty Impacts * Part II: Participatory Forest Management: Reality in the Field * Community Forestry in the Nepal Hills: Practice and Livelihood Impacts * Participatory Forest Management in the Nepalese Tarai: Policy, Practice and Impacts * Joint Forest Management in West Bengal * Forests and Livelihoods in Orissa * Participatory Forest Management in Andhra Pradesh: Implementation, Outcomes and Livelihood Impacts * Part III: Answering the Research Questions * Comparative Policy and Impact Issues * Participation or Democratic Decentralization: Strategic Issues in Local Forest Management * Glossary * Index

O autorze

Oliver Springate-Baginski is a Senior Research Fellow, Overseas Development Group, University of East Anglia (UEA), UK. Piers Blaikie is a Professorial Fellow at the School of Development Studies, UEA.