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Management Regimes, Property Rights, and Forest Biodiversity in Nepal and India

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Abstract

This article compares a range of initiatives aimed at involving people in the management of forest resources in Nepal and India. In Nepal, we focus on three categories of state-initiated programs: community forestry, the parks’ buffer zone program, and leasehold forestry. In the southern Indian state of Karnataka, we study the state-initiated Joint Forest Planning and Management program along with older institutions of leaf manure forests (Soppina betta) and historical sacred forests (Kans). We conclude that state-initiated approaches to involving communities have been limited, at best, promote standardized and relatively inflexible management practices, and lead to partial improvement in biodiversity and people’s livelihoods. When management is initiated and owned by the community, as in the case of sacred groves in India, and when other conditions are appropriate, communities can have the opportunity to demonstrate their capacity for putting effective and adaptive conservation practices in place.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Elinor Ostrom, Arun Agrawal, and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their feedback on earlier drafts. Financial support from the US National Science Foundation to the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change at Indiana University, the Winrock-Ford small grants program, and the Branco Weiss fellowship to HN is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank the Forest Departments of Karnataka State, India and Nepal for providing us with the necessary permissions to conduct our research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, Indiana University, 408 North Indiana Avenue, Bloomington, IN, 47408, USA

    Harini Nagendra

  2. Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), 659 Fifth A Main, Hebbal, Bangalore, 560024, India

    Harini Nagendra

  3. The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India Habitat Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 110003, India

    Yogesh Gokhale

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  1. Harini Nagendra
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Correspondence to Harini Nagendra.

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Nagendra, H., Gokhale, Y. Management Regimes, Property Rights, and Forest Biodiversity in Nepal and India. Environmental Management 41, 719–733 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-008-9073-y

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