What makes joint forest management successful?
In this new review paper RPCB focuses on community-based management systems and provides justification for instituting local monitoring and enforcement systems for sustainable governance of India's forests.
It is essential to emphasize that strong autonomy of rule-making at the local level (and not the government-imposed rules) is a key predictor of both better forests as well as better availability of goods and services to support livelihoods of local people. These science-based policy lessons have immediate practical utility for evidence-based forest management and restoration in India. There is an urgent need for the establishment of credible local monitoring, local rule-making and local enforcement systems in every village-level organization to facilitate local learning and adaptation.