Decentralization in India is evolving since JFM was introduced in 1990 and has matured since then into community forest management and federations of Forest Protection Communities. SHODH had undertaken an IFRI study of five communities in the year 2000 entitled ‘Institutional arrangements of two successful self-initiated attempts in forest management in Maharashtra' with an objective to understand factors affecting working of JFM. Social capital, as “ norms and shared understanding” within a community and “leadership” had come out as important factors responsible for successful collective action in two of the five communities. In a revisit in 2005, various aspects of social capital, like - stock of social capital, how it gets eroded, can it be built, its role in traditional and non-traditional communities, and changes over a period of time were explored. The study concludes that communities are able to build and use this capital productively towards forest management. It also brings out the fact that forest-dependent communities that have a historical endowment of social capital are likely to revive, maintain and use it than those who have recently developed its stock.

Project Funding: IFRI, Indiana University, USA

Project Output: Report no. 01-07 © SHODH

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