Fuelwood Consumption and Participation in Community Forestry in India

Decentralized forest management is an
important policy issue in India and elsewhere. Yet there are
few careful studies of the impacts of community forestry.
The authors try to fill this gap by analyzing National
Sample Survey data from 524 villages in five states in
India. Their analysis seeks to answer two key questions: (1)
Who participates in community forestry and what are the
determinants of participation? (2) What is the impact of
participation on household fuelwood consumption? The authors
find that proximity to forests, leadership, and fuelwood
dependence are significant factors in explaining village
participation in community forestry. Household participation
is strongly correlated with scarcity, a result that has
implications for a recent policy to expand community
forestry from degraded to less degraded forests. The
authors' most important findings are that fuelwood
consumption and participation are linked, and household
participation has a significant positive impact on
consumption. However, the presence of a village level
forestry institution does not have a direct effect.