INSTITUTIONAL FLAWS OF COLLECTIVE FOREST MANAGEMENT

This article examines the institutional development within the affores tation of village revenue lands in India as well as institutions set u p for management of already existing forests. These institutions are t ermed ''collective or joint forest-management committees'' indicating a joint government-village arrangement for forest protection. However, it is often unclear or skewed who has which rights and to what. The p resent article argues for a careful analysis of the kinds of rights, o f the categories of rightholders as well as of the bio-physical charac ter of the resource itself. The degree of sociopolitical overlap betwe en new induced institutions and the existing ones of local government such as the village panchayat is counterproductive. Another critical i ssue is the match between the institutional set-up and the biophysical characteristics of the resource itself. Both issues are examined in t he article.