National-scale Assessment of Community Forestry and NTFPs in India

Abstract

Purpose of Review Community forestry (CF) and non-timber forest products (NTFP) are central to rural livelihoods and decentralized forest governance in India; however, national-scale evidence of their scope and impact is lacking. The present study provides the first empirical and countrywide synthesis of the dynamics of CF and NTFP using data covering over 640,000 villages and proposes a new index, namely the community forestry utilization index, a composite state-level indicator based on three normalized components – availability of community forests, availability of NTFP, and household forest dependency – to enable the intensity of CF to be compared across different Indian states. Recent Findings The analysis revealed pronounced regional disparities and generally low engagement nationwide: only 11.6% of the villages reported access to community-managed forests, barely 3% participated in commercial extraction of NTFP, and less than 0.3% of the households depended primarily on NTFP as a source of income. High values of the proposed index in four states in India – 92 in Nagaland, 70 in Mizoram, 68 in Odisha, and 57 in Chhattisgarh (rounded off values) – indicate strong CF supported by customary tenure and favourable policies, whereas very low values of 29 in Madhya Pradesh and 9 in Kerala show weak CF. Given that all these six states report fairly high densities of forest cover, the cover thus does not necessarily translate into robust community participation or livelihood integration. Summary Strengthening of CF and NTFP faces three persistent challenges: slow recognition of the community rights to resources, structural inefficiencies in the market for NTFP, and weak institutional capacity to translate legal entitlements into livelihoods. Overcoming these challenges requires accelerated implementation of community rights, empowering local governments, investing in local value chains, and aligning CF with biodiversity and measures to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change—and the proposed index is ideal for monitoring nationwide efforts, benchmarking, and drawing up targeted policies for research in community forestry.