Complementarity of Institutions: a Prerequisite for the Success of Joint Forest Management. a Comparative Case of Four Villages from India

India’s forests have played an integral role in sustaining its people over many millennia. In addition to an abundance of nutritional, medicinal and subsistence goods, wilderness areas have provided the environment for spiritual and cultural expression of the Indian people. In the pre-British period, the ownership of forests was with the Kings, but the forest regimes were aimed at fair distribution of returns to all sections of society. In the Maurayan period (324 to 180 B.C.) forests were classified in three classes: (i) Reserve forests; (ii) Forests donated to eminent Brahmans; and, (iii) Forests for the public. The reserve forest were of two categories reserve forests for the king and reserve forests for the state (Dwivedi 1980: 9). Hence, the Maurayan-empire aimed to match the requirements of each section of society through a classification of forests. There are no records of classification-based forest management in the post-Maurayan period. With a few exceptions, access to forests were largely unrestricted. However, ultimate control over forest lands lay in the hands of the ruler of the territory (Stebbing 1922). The focus of forest ‘management’ continued to be geared towards the fair distribution of returns, and had characteristics of communal forest regimes.