Sanjay, Kumar. Does “participation” in common pool resource management help the poor? A social cost-benefit analysis of joint forest management in Jharkhand, India. World Development 30(5): 763-782, 2002

• JFM and other “community” forestry approaches are promoted as a means to encourage sustainable development and boost rural incomes, particularly of marginalized populations who disproportionately depend on forest resources.

• Caution: the term “community” is often thought of as a homogenous construct in recommendations for greater local participation in natural resource management, when in fact heterogeneities exist in community structure, which might affect outcomes.

• Study Objective: to compare the outcome of Joint-forest management (JFM ) regimes with other kinds of management approaches (lumped together as non-joint forest management (NJFM, e.g., more centralized direction but less de facto local control.)

• Case Study Approach: Data collected on 8 villages, five managing forests using JFM;

• Three using other arrangements (Non-Joint Forest Management). JFM/NFM Villages are “matched.”

• For the JFM regimes, the partners are local village councils and a district forestry forest office.

• Policy-Relevance: JFM widely recommend/prescribed in India. Important to assess whether equity goals achieved.

Analysis Structure• Explicit Stakeholder Impact Assessment• Net-economic effect considered for different land ownership

classes:– Landless– Marginal Farmer: up to 1 ha.– Small Farmer: 1-2 ha– Medium Famer : 2-4 ha– Large Famer: > 4

• Adjusted income effects by distributional weights:Ownership Class Distributional Weight

Landless 1.34

Marginal Farmer 1.23Small Farmer .88

Medium Farmer .82

Larger Farmer .58

=> Social Cost-Benefit Analysis (or distributionally-weighted stakeholder impact assessment)

ResultsTable: Present value of social costs and benefits of management of forests under JFM and NJFM regimes over a period of 40 years (Rs. hh-1)

Products/parameters

Forest Regime

Landless (no land)

Marginal Farmer (0- 1 ha)

Small Farmer (1-2 ha)

Medium Farmer (2-4 ha)

Large Farmer (>4 ha)

BenefitsFirewood JFM 30,199.0 26,924.0 24,965.0 19,858.0 12,783.0

NJFM 42,051.0 49,916.0 42,133.0 31,359.0 13,575.0

Small timber JFM 3,230.2 2,775.1 2,305.9 2,931.0 2,613.2NJFM 11,812.2 10,984.3 4,482.0 8,231.9 4,809.3

NWFP JFM 12,255.4 11,132.6 9,417.0 9,347.0 3,197.3NJFM 35,091.5 30,625.1 20,237.1 15,339.1 4,908.9

Managed JFM 7,874.0 7,228.0 5,171.0 4,818.0 3,408.0yield NJFM 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0Total JFM 53,559.0 48,059.0 41,859.0 36,954.0 22,001.0benefits NJFM 88,955.0 91,525.0 66,852.0 54,930.0 23,293.0Costs

Protection JFM 2,095.0 1,924.0 1,376.0 1,281.0 908.0NJFM 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

User fees JFM 571.0 490.0 408.0 518.0 461.0NJFM 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Total costs JFM 2,666 2,415 1,783 1,799 1,369

Net benefits JFM 50,893.0 45,645.0 40,076.0 35,155.0 20,632.0NJFM 88,955.0 91,525.0 66,852.0 54,930.0 23,293.0

His Explanation of Results:• User fee has a large impact on timber production.• Receipts are used by elites for village festivals

which boost prestige but don’t have direct benefits for the poor (other than increasing their sense of inclusion).

• Note: he implicitly attaches the shadow price “zero” to user fee receipts.

• Benefit of better property rights enforcement and control is to reduce non-wood forest products (NWFP).

Conclusion: the benefits of JFM get co-opted by village elites to the detriment of the poor.

Problem with Distributional Weighting for Relative Welfare Comparisons among Different

Income Classes:• High income group: 200 units of income/per capita. With

distributional weight of .5 => 100• Low Income group: 100 units of income/per capita. With

distributional weight of 2 => 200• Conclude: Project improves welfare of low income group

twice as much as high income!• Make sense logically but leads to strange normative

conclusion: • To normalize welfare effects across different income classes,

only support projects whose income benefits to high income groups four times as much as low income groups.

• Better to normalize welfare effects across income classes by supporting project which give more income to low income groups.

• NPV of project: • Impact on low income group: 100• Impact on high income group: -150• NPV= -50.• Is the gain of 100 to low income group worth

the loss of -150 to high income? If so, the relative distributional weight poor/rich is 1.5 to 1.

Distributional Weights more relevantin another Context

Alternative: Use KHTs withoutDistributional Weighting. JFM

Products/parameters (JFM)

Landless (no land)

Marginal Farmer (0- 1 ha)

Small Farmer(1-2 ha)

Medium Farmer (2-4 ha)

Large Farmer (>4 ha)

Forestry District NET

BENEFITS

Firewood 22,536.6 21,889.4 28,369.3 24,217.1 22,039.7 119,052.0

Small timber 2,410.6 2,256.2 2,620.3 3,574.4 4,505.5 15,367.0

NWFP 9,145.8 9,050.9 10,701.1 11,398.8 5,512.6 45,809.2

Managed yield 5,876.1 5,876.4 5,876.1 5,875.6 5,875.9 29,380.2

TRANSFER 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

User fee -426.1 -398.4 -463.6 -631.7 -794.8 2,714.7 0.0

COST

Protection -1,563.4 -1,564.2 -1,563.6 -1,562.2 -1,565.5 -7,819.0

NET 37,979.6 37,110.3 45,539.7 42,872.0 35,573.3 2,714.7 201,789.4

Alternative: Use KHTs withoutDistributional Weighting. NJFM

Products/parameters (JFM)

Landless (no land)

Marginal Farmer (0-

1 ha)

Small Farmer(1-2 ha)

Medium Farmer(2-4 ha)

Large Farmer(>4 ha) NET

BENEFITS

Firewood 31381.34 40582.11 47878.41 38242.68 23405.17 181489.72

Small timber 8815.08 8930.33 5093.19 10038.90 8291.90 41169.38

NWFP 26187.69 24898.46 22996.70 18706.22 8463.62 101252.69

Managed yield 0 0 0 0 0 0

NET 66384.10 74410.89 75968.30 66987.80 40160.69 323911.79

Bottom Line: JFM v NFM

Products/parameters (JFM)

Landless (no land)

Marginal Farmer (0- 1 ha)

Small Farmer(1-2 ha)

Medium Farmer (2-4 ha)

Large Farmer (>4 ha)

Forestry District NET

Percent difference moving from NJFM to JFM -42.8% -50.0% -40.0% -36.0% -11.4% NA -37.7%

NET JFM 37,979.6 37,110.3 45,539.7 42,872.0 35,573.3 2,714.7 201,789.4

NET NJFM 66,384.1 74,410.9 75,968.3 66,987.8 40,160.7 0.0 323,911.8