Can Joint Forest Management Programme Sustain Rural Life: A Livelihood Analysis from Community-based Forest Management Groups

This empirical study assesses the impact of community-based initiative under gender sensitive joint forest management (JFM) programme on sustainable rural livelihoods (SRL) across the socio-economic groups of forest fringe community based on JFM and non-JFM villages. The study suggests that strong livelihood sustainability criteria within the SRL framework meets for all marginal landholding and landless categories of households, which live below poverty line and that are almost dependent on forest resource for their livelihood security. The study also suggests that law or force can not effectively control the illegal collection of timber forest products (TFPs) for this poor households until and unless a considerable increase in the legal forest products (non-timber forest products like sal leaves and fuel wood) and wage income from forest meets their minimum livelihood security.