Empowering people through Joint Forest Management: a study from Madhya Pradesh (India)

Joint Forest Management focuses on empowerment of forest dwelling communities both socially and economically. The present study attempts to analyse the government policies, programmes and legal provisions regarding JFM with emphasis on empowerment in the Madhya Pradesh context.

One of the major thrusts of the empowerment is capacity development. The efforts made by the Forest Department in capacity development are not yet able to yield the desired results in the field. However, there has been a basic shift towards empowerment and a large number of people, at least feel, that they are politically, socially and personally empowered after being involved in JFM. The translation of the empowerment into actual practice is going to be a major challenge for the sustainability of the JFM in the future.