Retrofitting Joint Forest Management (JFM) in Protected Areas of Indian Sundarbans: How Sustainable It Is?

Abstract

Covering an area of approximately 10,000 sq. km., the low-lying Gangetic delta in India (aka Indian Sundarbans delta) is well known for its exceptional vulnerability to a wide array of climate change phenomenon, including sea level rise, severe coastal erosion and rise in hydrometeorological disasters. The delta consists of 4.37 million people alongside a vast, impeccable mangrove forests covering approximately 2000 sq. km. This makes ecosystem-based adaptation as a natural choice for its underprivileged dwellers who are currently suffering from an unprecedented risk of seaward hazards. Unlike many other contiguous mangrove forests that remain heavily exploited, mangroves of Indian Sundarbans are, in general, well protected under varied degree of legislative protection. Despite of large underprivileged communities within its immediate vicinity, vast network of protected areas have played an important role in strict conservation ever since its implementation during the early 1970s. Nevertheless, acknowledging the customary rights of local communities, participatory management of mangroves was formally introduced within these otherwise protected areas under the federally administered Joint Forest Management (JFM) guidelines. Consequently, the existing JFM arrangements were mostly retrofitted within a prohibitory environment that encourages strict protection of the mangroves with minimal human intervention. Under this backdrop, this chapter aims to understand how effectively the goals and objectives of JFMs are implemented in this area keeping in view of the social, economic and environmental sustainability component of the existing JFM arrangements. Additionally, this chapter provides a brief review on the history of mangrove conservation in Indian Sundarbans through screening of various policy documents, field reports and peer-reviewed literatures and attempts to identify the pertaining issues related to mangrove sustainability in a dynamic policy environment.