first EF meeting
- background note... contd.

Subject for sharing and discussions in EF:
Common Property Resource Management in Watershed with special focus on forest and revenue lands in Phase-II

Concerns issues and problems with regard to CPR in watershed projects:

Several initiatives have been made by different development interveners to address the issues of the development and managment of the CPR by the village communities/users groups, who are the primary users of the resources and who have certain concerns for long time sustainability in terms of its availability and management. Many NGOs, NGO Networks and International Development Agencies have been actively involved in policy changes towards community managed CPRs for long-term sustainability. There have been changes in the policies/laws pertaining to CPRs at the Government of Karnataka level and at the National level to bring an enabling environment for the community to participate, develop, use, share the benefits and manage the resources by themselves. Example: The JFPM in Western Ghats in Karnataka, assisted by DFID, is one such example where systematic efforts have been made by a collective of interveners: GoK Forest Department, NGOs, resource Organizations and experts to enable the communities (VFCs) to become part and parcel of degraded forest land development and management, which will lead in to long term sustainability. Many who have been involved personally in the JFPM project said that there is still scope to improve the JFPM guidelines and roles of Forest Department for the real empowerment of the village communities to manage the CPRs.

There have been unresolved issues in the watershed areas of semi arid regions in Karnataka (Eastern Ghats) with regard to development and management of resources in the forest and revenue lands. Several National/State watershed schemes are being implemented like DPAP, DDP, NWDPRA, waste development projects and other donor-assisted projects like DFID assisted KAWAD project, DANIDA – Karnataka Watershed Development Programme and Swiss supported ISPWDK Project etc. All these projects, one way or the other, encounter the problems related to ownership, procedural issues with regard to development and management of the forest and revenue lands in the watershed by the community themselves.

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Specific issues in ISPWDK Project with regard to CPR development in Forest and Revenue land