Assessment of People's Participation and Impact of Joint Forest Management (JFM)

Since the mid 1980s, devolution and decentralization of natural resource management has become a policy tool for many developing countries across the globe. Many countries including India have developed and decentralized their resource use and management system to the users. The apparent change in policy from the state managed top down approach to the community level (Bottom up approach) is fueled by the recognition of the limits of government agencies in managing resources at the local level, which has resulted in massive degradation of natural resources and of local people's livelihood systems.