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Village woodlots in Gujarat: an experiment in social forestry Resources
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Working Paper No. 17. Institute of Rural Management Anand. 1991

This short paper reports the results of a study of five village woodlots established on Panchayat lands in Kheda District by the Gujarat Forest Department. The study included a survey of 20 households in each village, but survey methods, including sampling are not described. The study’s main conclusions are that the social forestry woodlots had neither increased nor generally reduced local fuelwood and fodder supplies. Major limitations in the establishment of woodlots included the failure to involve villagers in the choice of species and inadequate provisions for plantation protection. The paper includes a particularly interesting discussion on how the performance of the village woodlots was affected by the institutional limitations of the Panchayats, which tended to be dominated by socio-economically powerful groups, and by the lack of clear agreements between Panchayats and the Forest Department on harvesting arrangements, income-sharing, and mechanisms to ensure that subsequent distribution or use of income and/or forest products by Panchayats was equitable.
P S Jain, V N Pandey

community forestry/co-management, economic viability, institutions, joint forest management, organisations, social forestry, user groups
India

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