Environment
Community forest management is the future
It has been 10 years since the Joint Forest Management (jfm) was officially started in India. Ajit Banerjee, who first experimented with the concept of jfm , today wants this programme to be replaced by community forest management. He spoke to KumKum Dasgupta about the past, present and future of forest management
What does JFM lack?
Even today, most of the major decisions are taken by the forest department. Only a small part of the decision making process has been transferred to the village community, and that too only for degraded forests. Another drawback is that only 15-20 per cent of the forest officials believe in the theory of JFM.