Forest-route to poverty alleviation - myths and realities: Analysis of forest produce-livelihood linkages in India

Most of the forest based livelihood studies and research have revolved around either macro-pictures of forest-potential in terms of gross values of products and services , millions of days of employment, return/contribution to the state exchequer, trade potential etc. or micro-elements like percentage contribution to livelihood of poor forest dwellers and/or indigenous tribes. Though such studies have contributed to changes in national policies and in decision makers’ perspectives on forest management, they have not been able to augment the livelihoods of the forest-dependent communities substantially. In absence of adequate information like return to the poor in money-terms with respect to his labour inputs and time of involvements, translating the benefits of pro-poor policy interventions have not been very effective, at least in major parts of India. The present systems of price fixation of forest produces in some states of India, does not consider the return to the poor on his time invested, primarily due to lack of such infomation. Poverty being measured as per monetary value of income per unit time (e.g. US $ /day), the amount accrued to the poor from forest produces directly over unit time becomes highly important, without undermining the relevance of buffers like non-monetary and indirect forest-benefits.

There have been dispersed qualitative studies indicating low returns, high price spread and trade-exploitations in the forest produce collection and trade by the poor. These have lead to a feeling that often communities resort to forest-based livelihood options because of lack of other options or very limited opportunity cost of their labour. This may be a myth as trade of these items usually attracts high premium and communities continue to involve in spite of availability of other employment options. However, absence of ground-statistics on time-money relationships and on critical value chain analysis, distinguishing the myths and realities continue to be subjective affair. This paper tries to analyze the forest route to poverty alleviation in these perspectives and tries to explore market based solutions taking examples from different states of India. It starts with profiling of forest produce-livelihood linkages in three states located in western, eastern and north eastern India under different agro-climate and rights and access situations through existing indicators available from secondary and primary investigations. Then it goes on to analyze situations in micro-sites in two of these states through time-money indicators and value chain analysis obtained through primary investigations to compare and contrast the divergence/convergence between these two sets of indicators, essentially to come out prescription for meaningful pro-poor policy and actions.

Abstract of paper to be presented at the International Conference on Poverty Reduction and Forests-Tenure, Market and Policy Reforms organized by RECOFTC and Rights & Resources at Bangkok, September 3-7, 2007