UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Recent Changes in India's Forest Policy

Identification

Public canonical key

openalex:w2184065310

Authors

Stig Toft Madsen

Reported year

1995

Reported language

en

Source type

conference-paper

First detected

2026-11-09T19:18:42.893615+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:18:42.893615+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Documentary abstract — original language

"It is possible to discern three recurring elements in the debate on forests rights in India: 1) Forest Department's sin of commission; 2) Forest Department's sin of omission; and 3) The myth of people's prudence. \n \n "The first element postulates that the Forest Department (FD) alienated the people from the forests. The second holds that the FD has failed in its duty to protect the forests and that deforestation has caused a general environmental crisis. Finally, what Roger Jeffery has called the 'standard environmental narrative' embraces a myth of people's prudence positing that if the state would hand back the forests (CPR) to the people (forest dwellers or tribals), the forests would be restored and the environmental crisis would wane. \n \n "In this paper I sketch the process of reform which has actually taken place. Most forests are still state property and it is unlikely that this is going to change, but the National Forest Policy has been influenced by the above narrative. In terms of investment and foreign collaboration, the stress has been on social forestry which operates on an economic logic. An attempt to reconcile the divergent trends of reform has resulted in the concept of Joint Forest Management which acknowledges people's right to influence, but tries to steer such demands into economically profitable and ecologically acceptable joint ventures between the FD and local organizations. \n \n "The paper concludes that top politicians, top civil servants, NGOs, the judiciary and the media have been the important players in the policy formulation process, and that larger interest organizations and political parties have been marginal."

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W2184065310

Documentary context

Documentary family

Conference paper / proceedings

Source-reported types

conference-paper

Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources

IN

Natural entities mentioned

Forest

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• Document · http://hdl.handle.net/10535/2099
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W2184065310

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1498777001 · CITES
• openalex:w1508249073 · CITES
• openalex:w1559842683 · CITES
• openalex:w1567998962 · CITES
• openalex:w1590621261 · CITES
• openalex:w1900063138 · CITES
• openalex:w1973934748 · CITES
• openalex:w1981401259 · CITES
• openalex:w1992379795 · CITES
• openalex:w2000992980 · CITES
• openalex:w2010138842 · CITES
• openalex:w2023766021 · CITES
• openalex:w2037503630 · CITES
• openalex:w2053459700 · CITES
• openalex:w2068218176 · CITES
• openalex:w2072042237 · CITES
• openalex:w2115822951 · CITES
• openalex:w2120157340 · CITES
• openalex:w218269224 · CITES
• openalex:w2228544921 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.