Introduction:

This paper reviews the Community Forest conservation program in Eastern India. This
conservation program is one very common in forest across the globe. This paper is a review
of the conservation program in place in the community forest of Eastern India and will be
an overview of the issues faced and the steps that are being taken to reduce these issues
such as; the role of the commons, the traditional ecological knowledge in the area as well as
community based conservation and finally the role on sustainable use in the area.
History:
In the mid-nineteenth century large areas of India began to be p-laced under the
management of state forest departments in order to protect them as well as to use them
for production. At this point these lands were taken as public land. The switch to the land
becoming public led to many people who for years had relied on the land for various
purposes (food, fuel, building materials, medicine, fibers) to lose their rights to the land. By
the year 1980 it was estimated that approximately 23% of India's land had been placed
under state management. This caused an estimated 300 million rural resource users to
become displaced.
As rural resource users' rights to the land decreased conflicts between state agencies and
Indian villagers increased. The strong disagreements of management priorities led to
unsustainable patterns of forest exploration and the degradation of India's forest.

The Commons:
In the community forest of Eastern India there is vast amounts of natural resources that can
be put to use. For years the natives have been taking advantage of this. There is wood that
can be used to build and craft, plant life that can be used for subsistence as well as
medicine, and large varieties of animals that can be hunted and ate. The rural resource
users never had an issue with depletion of these resources. Their use of the resources and
the amount of time it took for them to replenish seems to have balanced out well. During
the colonial period when the English began to use the land and its resources is when the
issues with the commons began. They began to exploit the land for resources such as
timber. During British colonial rule a zamindar named Bhwan Chandra Pal of Chandra
controlled the forest tracts. In order to pay his taxes to the British Raj, he would
periodically lease tracts of the forest to contractors for loggers (poffenburger 1994, 55). The
eastern indian community forest did struggle with the tragedy of the commons. With the
increase in unsustainable froest exploration people began to use the resources too quickly
and refuse to see that their actions were adding up to the huge problem of forest and
natural resource depletion. By the 1990s it is estimsated that there was less than 10% of
good forest cover left. In more recent years forest administrators and planners have began
to create new policies that have the purpose of minimizing the conflict between rural
resource users and state agencies as well as aid in forest regeneration.

Sustainable Use:
In the Early 1950s the Zamindar Abolition Law was passed which freed the forest from thr
control of the zamindar (Poffenberg 1994, ). The issue of sustainable use in the community
forest of Eastern India is a very real problem and could help to reduce the issues involving
the commons. In the 1970s political organizers came into the forest community and
informed the residents that the forest was community property (poffenburger 1994). This
information led the start of cutting and selling trees without discriminatin, no real control
system existed. Within less than ten years the forest were so degraded that even the root
system of some sal trees were taken as fuelwood. This had long term effects on the
environment, the forest became dry and rainfall decreased, according to locals. Resource
depletion was happening very quickly in the late 20
th
century. With the use of the new
policies put into place by the forest administrators and the planners they have been able
top reduce the depletion and better the sustainable use of the community forest in Eastern
India. The new policies aided to create collaborative forest management systems that
addressed national needs and local requirements. In West Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa there
are forest management systems promise an alternative to the old custodial policing systems
of the past. A shift from commercial timber exploration to the sustainable use of non-
timber products is needed.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge:
The people of Eastern Indias community forest have lived their for years upon years and
have a large amount of traditional ecological knowledge of the environment. According to a
local Chandana villager, before the British colonial rule, the forest was covered with first
growth Sal trees. (Poffenbuger 1994, 55).
Community- Based Conservation
In the community forest of Eastern India have had many attempts at community based
conservation. In 1983 a man named Iyoti Naik began to visit the village people of the
Chandana forest to discuss forest management issues. He felt that the forest needed ro be
controlled like the agricultural land since it was now controlled by the community
(Poffenburger 1994, 58). Village level meetings were arranged and within a little time a
sufficient amount of Chandana villagers as well as people from three neighboring villages to
discuss a collaborative management program. They decided to divide responsibility of the
areas of the forest among the villages depending on location. (Poffenburger 1994, 58). The
villages actively protecting the forest tracts. There has also been meetings with local
political representatives from the area with the goal of persuading them to put pressure on
protection communities. When people from the Chandana village catch people cutting
tress they ask them to go elsewhere, if the cutters do not listen they may get the women to
chase them away with sticks. Axes and other material has been known to be confiscated.
(Poffenburger 1994, 58-59).