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The introduction of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme in India as a part of community forestry initiatives from the late 1980s was an internationally recognised successful effort in forest restoration. Its achievements were most pronounced in the Sal (Shorea robusta)-dominated tropical dry deciduous forests of eastern and south-eastern states of India. However, these forests, and consequently the marginal people dependent on them for their livelihood, have increasingly faced multidimensional challenges in the past 15 years in the context of sustainable forest management. An overall assessment of the management scenario for these community forests and formulation of some guidelines towards better management was carried out on the basis of intensive case studies in the Nayagram Forest Range of West Bengal, India. Socio-economic as well as ecological aspects of sustainable forestry were analysed on the basis of criteria and indicators of community-oriented forestry. Functioning of a forest protection community as a cohesive group was found to be the major determinant in achieving sustainability in forest management. Maintenance of such institutional sustainability is recommended for better conservation of these highly stressed forest lands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the role of social capital in community development by focusing on two South Asian case studies drawn from India and Bangladesh. Both studies recognized social capital as a useful resource, which facilitates social interaction and promotes mutual support and cooperation and thus improves participants’ livelihood through income generation, better community governance and capacity building. An important observation is that social capital yields superior outcome if it is used in line with the local conditions of a given society. The findings suggest lessons for policy planners, donor agencies, development practitioners, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society to use social capital as a resource in order to achieve sustainable community development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The vast natural resources of India's forests, including non-timber forest products (NTFPs), such as medicinal and aromatic plants, leaves, fruits, seeds, resins, gums, bamboos, and canes, offer employment that provides up to half the income of about 25 per cent of the country's rural labour force. However, poor harvesting practices and over-exploitation in the face of increasing market demand are threatening the sustainability of these resources, and thus the livelihoods of forest-dependent tribal communities. This article analyses the role of NTFPs in livelihoods-improvement initiatives and considers recent initiatives intended to enhance their conservation and sustainable management. It recommends policies to optimise the potential of NTFPs, both to support rural livelihoods and to contribute to India's social, economic, and environmental well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sundarbans delta in India and Bangladesh is valued at large and is under considerable attention worldwide. However, in Brundtland's terms, which suggest that to achieve sustainability of sustainable development, economic growth, social equity, and environmental security can and should all be achieved together, the Sundarbans is failing badly. Therefore, institutional adequacies of fragmentation, goal displacement, and implementation deficit need to be addressed before aspiring for sustainability in the Sundarbans. This is an attempt to analyse the prevailing situation in the Sundarbans and provide reasons for the wide gap between what has been achieved and what had been envisaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the concept of sustainable development based on the economic and social situation in Kerala, India. Criteria for sustainability should include not only environmental stability and improvement, but social, political and economic justice, improvement in the quality of life of vulnerable sections of the population at low cost, and an improvement in the overall status of women. Though Kerala has a low throughput, the indicators of social progress have not suffered because of sustained efforts to limit population growth rate and social inequality, and to conserve resources frugally and use them on a shared basis. The test of practicing sustainable development should be based upon a society's ability to maintain and further improve upon the quality of life of its citizens by living within its own resource means. It is thus still debatable whether Kerala has entered a mature stage of self-sustaining development. It can only be hoped that the political leadership and the policy makers concerned will continue to implement policies to take it to the mature stage.

The genesis of socio-economic impact assessment (SIA) in India is pressure from funding agencies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and similar institutions. Of late, these institutions have stressed appraisal of environmental concerns as a precondition for financial support to large infra-structure projects. However, SIA studies are easier to conceptualize than to implement, because the issues involved are nebulous, complex, highly nuanced, difficult to define, and not easily amenable to quantification. These are some of the reasons for the cursory treatment of socio-economic impact studies in India asa formality to satisfy monitoring and funding agency requirements and not as a tool for ensuring maximum social good through the developmental process. However, proper implementation of the concept of SIA in essential in attaining the goals of sustainable development. Ensuring social justice, i.e. preventing the continued impoverishment, displacement, social dislocation, and marginalization of the weaker sections of Indian society, who always seem to bear the burden of adverse effects of such large infra-structure projects in disproportionate numbers, is also a goal of SIA. Increasing ambivalent attitudes and mounting opposition towards the implementation of large water resources projects of late in India necessitate systematic, transparent, and exhaustive consideration of all relevant socio-economic issues before implementation of such projects. The objective of this study was to develop a comprehensive methodology for SIA for large water resource projects in India. The methodology was based on the review of the literature and other means and implicitly addresses the major goals of SIAsustainable development and the achievement of social justice related to development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]