Forestry Sector
The reforms in forestry sector in India, initiated from 1990 as part of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) Program has been widely documented. The state of Meghalaya differs from many other states of the country in terms of ownership of forests. About 90% of the forest area in the state is under the community control and governed under a range of customary laws e.g. sacred groves, private forests, village forests, clan forests etc. Hence, JFM is not operational in the state. The influence of customary law is, however, declining and the tenure issue is further complicated in the state by the lack of land records. With the intensification of shifting cultivation in the state, the forest resources in Meghalaya has seen in the last 30 years two big changes in the property regime; from a community resource to open access, and then from open access to de facto private ownership over large areas (Saxena, 2002).
Until 1996, income from timber and related activities used to be the major source of income to various groups in the state. However, concerned with the excessive deforestation in the region, the Supreme Court of India issued a ban on timber felling in the North-Eastern region. This has not only worsened the income-opportunities of the poor groups, but many argue that it has lead to unsustainable harvest and sale of valuable timber. Since, tree as timber has no sale value, in many cases high-value timber is being sold for about one-tenth the price as fuelwood, on the sale of which there is no ban (Nathan, 2000). In addition to timber, there exist a wide potential for income from NTFPs in the state, which has not been harnessed by various agencies (DONER, 2002).