Uttaranchal (India)

“Networking Forest Plantations (NETFOP) in a crowded world: optimising ecosystem services through improved planning and management” is a research network between Wageningen University and Research (WUR) in the Netherlands, Freiburg University (FU) in Germany and the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Dehra Dun, India. Its objective is to establish an expert network of these universities on forest planning and management, including development of methodologies and tools for assessing and optimising forest ecosystem goods and services.

Having incorporated elements of the MLA approach in the project document, the project sought CIFOR’s advice on assessing the various benefits and services of the forests (fuelwood, NTFP’s, biodiversity, environmental services, recreation, employment), and especially with regard to assessments of local communities’ perceptions. Secondly, it requested CIFOR’s help in training the researchers.

The survey was carried out in three different altitudinal zones on the lower slopes of the Himalaya range. The Forest Department manages state forests of in the middle and upper zones, with some involvement of village committees. In the last five years village committees have managed community plantations established in or near some villages. Pressure on the resources is high. Most communities are highly dependent on natural resources, have small agricultural fields and collect fodder and firewood from the forest, while those close to towns and at lower altitudes also extract products commercially.

The NETFOP project as a whole tried to address many stakeholders, but the survey discussed here focused on local communities. Within these, women’s and men’s perceptions were considered separately. A two-week training and field preparation meeting was held at FRI in Dehra Dun with staff, graduates and experienced community facilitators from FRI, and MSc students from WUR and FU teamed-up with Indian participants, to bridge language barriers during data collection. The group was trained in participatory methods, interviewing and focus group discussions. The team developed draft questionnaires about the different ecosystem functions (based on Groot et al., 2002), in collaboration with local counterparts in India and Wageningen University. The methods and questions were practised and tested in one of the villages and subsequently adapted.

The survey work took about 30 days, spread over two months in six villages. Activities in each village included a community meeting where participants listed environmental goods and services and prepared a participatory map, focus group discussions, PDM exercises, a detailed household survey and interviews with local experts. FRI staff and MSc students analysed the data, and have prepared a synthesis report to EU office in New Delhi. No follow-up activities have been planned so far.

This was the first time that local communities were involved in ecosystem valuation and staff gained several lessons. The time frame set for the survey was short and did not take into account the needs for villagers to set the pace. Survey villages were small, and the same community members were often participating in many hours of interviews and exercises. Women were not able to participate often, as they have many time-consuming daily tasks. The biophysical component was carried out in isolation from the participatory value assessment in terms of teams, locations and timing, which made the MLA approach’s characteristic integration of data impossible.

The intention to go beyond a qualitative assessment of environmental goods and services using the PDM and to quantify them was successful only in part, since many of the regulatory, habitat and cultural functions are intangible and hard to quantify. Also, people may have been reluctant to give information about quantities of products taken from the state forests, as this is officially not allowed.

An economic valuation was carried out by the project’s team for services provided, mitigation of wind erosion and the forest’s functions as refugium, nursery, for primary production, nutrient cycling, soil formation and water cycling. Fodder and firewood are the two most important forest products, and it would be helpful if the Forest Department would consider more fodder and fuelwood species for afforestation.

The project’s ultimate intention is to formulate policy recommendations for improved management of forests both natural and planted. To foster participation, the Forest Department could make better use of existing, well-established village organisations like the Van Panchayat, and local communities would become more committed if they were involved in the design of projects, rather than only in their implementation.