Sponsored Agency - Department of Forest Govt. of Madhya Pradesh

SVSS build the capacity building to the community members on cluster basis to acquire entrepreneurship skills to provide long term hand holding support to community groups to successfully run the business enterprise, similarly , the CBO leaders would be imparted training and subsequently refresher training on hand holding to JFMC. Similarly the community members are also trained on major forest policies that have a bearing on the local community the major MP JFMC resolutions and their implementations & Bio- diversity and its importance. The community members are also trained on tribal forests right act, social issue & conflict management, sustainable forest management, soil & water conservation, development needs identification and micro planning of JFMC committees. Organization is working with 60 JFMC in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh under World Food Programme & Department forest Madhya Pradesh.

A brief listing of various forms of formal community
tenure and management of forests both past and present is provided below:

1-Forest Cooperatives in the Madras Presidency(1900s).
2-Section 28 - Village Forest Provision of the Indian Forest Act (1927)
3-Van Panchayats in the (now) Uttarakhand (1930s onwards).
4-Cooperative Forest Societies in Kangra (1940s,earlier Punjab, now Himachal Pradesh).
5-Woodlots on panchayat lands under Social Forestry (1980s - with Revenue sharing agreements)
6-Forest Protection Committees (FPCs) under JFM since 1990
7-Community Forest Rights & Resource (CFRt & CFRe) under the FRA.

Who can become a member, and process of being a member All adult members residing within the revenue boundaries of the area where a JFMC is being
proposed are eligible and must be made members.
The area could be a village or group of villages, a hamlet, or a combination of whole villages and hamlets of other villages, depending on location and historical relations and forest use patterns.

Membership criteria are as per the JFM resolution of the state. State should “Provide quote from resolution”

Membership for a JFMC is open for all members off the gram sabha – i.e. voting adults. (in some states membership is open to one male and one female
member of each household).

Members may consider putting a non-resident member option in their byelaws. This will allow members who live outside the village to also participate in the activities of the JFMC, without necessarily having to be on site. However, they will not be able to participate in the meeting when Byelaws will be adopted. Byelaws should consider the following with respect to non-resident members: Voting rights

Level of contributions:

Share in forest produce – self collected
Share in net income, as and when received from the FD.

Forests are the most valuable Natural Resource, which have been nurturing the need and greed of man since time immemorial. They are the source of timber, water, fuel and fodder and are looked upon as the most critical link in photosynthesis and as a repository of biodiversity having an immense importance for global eco-systems. While the need based utilization conforms to the norms of sustainable utilization, greed often leads to unsustainable extraction
leading to degradation of the resource as well as generating more conflicts.