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Devolution of Forest Management: A Cautionary Case of Pukhtun Jirgas in Dispute Settlements

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Abstract

Devolution of natural resource management is a widely claimed aim in policy discourse. The Government of Pakistan is undertaking devolution of Provincial Government, including the Provincial Forest Departments. In historical and current practice, forest management has been devolved to local, community-based jirgas. Jirgas achieve some of the aims claimed by devolution which often fail in community-based management organizations. They represent the interests of different asset-based groups and ensure use rights of all for subsistence. However, the internal logic on which they work is based on different principles than those envisaged by policymakers. A case study of Pukhtun agropastoralists in the Malakand Division, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan, illustrates the jirga's role in forest management and questions some of the assumptions on which community-based management is founded.

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Notes

  1. cf. Ostrom, 1999; Shackleton et al., 2002.

  2. Throughout this paper, I use the term community-based management as a general term for various forms of participatory, local-level management organizations.

  3. Their legend corresponds to that cited by Caroe (1957, 1990). See also Ahmed, 1976.

  4. No definition of peasant or worker is given.

  5. For a critical appraisal of implementation of the Forest Ordinance see Tawawalla, 2004. See Geiser, 2000; Sarhad Awami Forestry Ittehad, 2000; and Suleri, 2002 for criticisms of earlier forest reform proposals.

  6. Cf. for example, Campbell and Vainio-Mattila, 2003; Gauld, 2002; Geiser, 2003; Sundar and Jeffrey, 1999.

  7. For comparative overviews of CBM projects in other parts of the regions cf: Geiser, 2000, 2003, 2005; Hasan, 2001; Knudsen, 1999; Steimann, 2003; and Suleri, 2002.

  8. Exploratory research was done throughout Malakand Division for 4 months during 1991.

  9. Mishra et al., 2003, reports variations within the same area of Himachal Pradesh.

  10. The Akhund Khel consider themselves to be miangan, i.e., descendants of a religious Pir (in this case an Akhund). However, unlike many other miangans, they claim that their land is mali kahanimat, i.e., land cleared of non-believers, and inherited not Tserai, i.e., it was not given by a khan but conquered at a later date than the conquest of the Swat valley in the 16th century. Therefore, their position should not be confused with that described in some of the literature on Swat (e.g., Barth, 1959, and Ahmed, 1976).

  11. Katinka Korver, M.Sc. student, Wageningen University.

  12. This division was never changed. In Swat, land was redistributed about every 20 years according to the size of lineage and following. This was never done in Ajmir.

  13. See Orlove and Guillet, 1985.

  14. At the time of research, five men had migrated to the Middle East. In 2004, about 25 men had migrated there (personal communication).

  15. The new Forest Ordinance states “right holder means a person who does not have proprietary rights over forest but has rights or privileges over reserved forests, protected forests, wasteland as per record of rights admitted at the time of settlement or subsequently admitted as right holder by Government” (Government of NWFP, 2002, p. 1152).

  16. In response to flooding in other parts of the country and to prevent forest commissioners from harvesting timber in excess of sustainable yields (ADB, 1995, p. 12). The moratorium remains up to the time of writing, March, 2005.

  17. Forest land was registered under the Survey of Forests. Other land was registered under the Settlement Record. Both were completed in the mid 1980s in Ajmir (cf. Southwold-Llewellyn, 2002b, for details).

  18. This remained applicable until the Forest Ordinance become law at the end of 2004. The Forest Ordinance gives the same rights of use as those stipulated in the Working Plan (Government of NWFP, 2002).

  19. In principle, sons inherit equally when their father dies. However, sometimes, the land is divided equally among the sons and their father before his death. Also, if the family has little land, larger shares may be given to elder brothers. And in the past, when a man had more than one wife, the inheritance of sons born to different mothers was not equal.

  20. Another factor may have been that, after incorporation, owners did not feel that their ownership was secure; but none of my informants mentioned this.

  21. Interviews on 28 June, 1993 and 2 August, 1994, with Salar Khan, Divisional Forest Officer for Alpuri whose area included Ajmir.

  22. Cf. Southwold-Llewellyn, 2005, for detailed ethnography on the interpretations and practice of four guards working in Ajmir.

  23. See Steimann, 2003 for an example in Hazara.

  24. See Gururani, 2000: 185–88 for a comparative and mostly similar account of the position of Forest Guards in India.

  25. The rate of exchange in June, 1993, was Rs. 26.913 to $1.

  26. Banerjee, 2000, notes that during the Colonial Period, Pathan violence increased as an egalitarian social order was replaced by feudal hierarchy.

  27. A ¼ share is unique to Kana and Alpuri. In Swat, tenants receive ½ share of the crop.

  28. Irrigation in Tamil Nadu is another example. See Mosse, 2003.

  29. A fuller explanation is in Southwold-Llewellyn, 2002a.

  30. Cf. Gupte, 2004, for an example of how women are marginalized in CBM in India.

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  1. Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, 6706, KN, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Sarah Southwold-Llewellyn

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Southwold-Llewellyn, S. Devolution of Forest Management: A Cautionary Case of Pukhtun Jirgas in Dispute Settlements. Hum Ecol 34, 637–653 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-006-9040-2

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