Sustainable Forest Management Practices and the Recent Experience of Birbhum District, West Bengal: Some Critical Observations

Abstract

Sustainable forest management refers to both the expansion offorest area and the conservation of biodiversity. Theincorporation of forest-user groups into forest managementpractices under the social forestry scheme has led to animprovement of the canopy cover over the years but the protectionof biodiversity has been at stake. To understand the reasonbehind this dilemma, an in-depth study of such user groups wasconducted in a few selected forest patches of the Birbhum districtof West Bengal. The study reveals that while the incentive packagedesigned for forest protection is encouraging monocultureplantation, a gradual transition of culture as well as livelihoodpractices of the forest-dependent people has adversely affectedtheir motivation for conservation of forest biodiversity. Therefore,need arises to design new strategic intervention policies thatcan incentivise forest protection without compromisingbiodiversity conservation.