| Research Abstract |
The objective of this research project is to investigate the influences of India's rapid economic growth during the last decade on the livelihood of people living in poor rural area by means of a re-survey of the same 360 households that were interviewed in 1997/98, spread over 60 villages in rural areas in Madhya Pradesh, a landlocked less developed state of India. Particularly, this research project focuses on the impact of participatory forest management called joint forest management (JFM) that had been promoted ten years ago on forest resources and rural welfare.
During 2005 fiscal year, the first year of the project, we carried out two series of preliminary survey and complete questionnaires for re-survey. During 2006 fiscal year, we conducted a training session for field investigators in January 2007 after the rainy season of 2006, and then launched main survey in February. However, several investigators resigned soon after the main survey started and it took some time to recruit
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replacements. Consequently, we could not finish the main survey during the dry season of 2007 Since data collection in the field becomes difficult during the rainy season due to poor access, we had stopped survey in the rainy season and resumed it only in October 2007. Because of the delay in data collection, data entry is still going on as of the end of 2007 fiscal year although most of the interview had been completed. Hence, detailed analyses of the survey data will be done during 2008 fiscal year.
At the time of the previous survey in 1997, both the JFM implementing agent, i. e. department of forest of the state government, and its beneficiaries, i.e. farmers, seemed to have high expectation on JFM since JFM had been just started funded by the World Bank. But now that external funding has been ceased, JFM has become a way of mobilization of local people to forest activities by department of forest: although JFM scheme itself is surviving farmers' benefit from JFM is only daily wage paid for the work of tree planting, trimming, etc. Since farmers have to wait for several decades until they start receiving benefit from the plantation of valuable trees such as teak, they do not have enough motivation to participate in JFM activities now. Therefore, while JFM has improved farmers' income and extended tree plantation area, it may not have a significant impact on the conservation of natural forest. As for agriculture, on the other hand, the adoption of well-irrigation technology has significantly expanded during the last decade, and over-exploitation of grand water has now become a problem in some parts of the study site. Less
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