Importance of Forests is globally recognized not only as important source of subsistence, employment, revenue earnings, raw materials to a number of industries but also for their vital role in ecological balance, environmental stability, biodiversity conservation, food security and sustainable development of a country Deforestation per se is not a problem and in fact may be a necessary condition for economic development. Unsustainable deforestation activities, however, result in environmental degradation.

1. Forest Dependence, Livelihoods and Poverty
Ashish Bharadwaj
II M.Sc. Economics, 2007
Madras School of Economics

2. Design of the study
1
2
Aim of this assignment
Current scenario
3
Establishing links between environment and poverty
4
Forest-Livelihood Nexus
5
Data and Methodology
6
Model
7
References
8
Results, Conclusion and Policy Suggestions

4. Importance of Forests is globally recognized not only as important source of
subsistence, employment, revenue earnings, raw materials to a number of
industries but also for their vital role in ecological balance, environmental stability,
biodiversity conservation, food security and sustainable development of a country
Deforestation per se is not a problem and in fact may be a necessary condition for
economic development. Unsustainable deforestation activities, however, result in
environmental degradation.

5. • Natural Resource degradation, if not
checked, will result in large-scale
poverty & destitution, and can hamper
the very process of socio-economic
development (Nandkarni 2000)
• Environment Degradation impacts
the poor much more than the better off
(greater dependence, limited assets,
vulnerability to disasters)
• Rural women are disproportionately
affected by natural resource
degradation (B. Agarwal, 1995)
• Concentration of the poorest groups
in perhaps the ecologically most
fragile areas implies greatest risk to
their welfare

6. Some Statistics…
India’s forest cover is estimated to be about 6,75,538 sq. km. or 20.55 percent of the
country’s area
However, the per capita availability of forestland in India is 0.0747 ha which is still one of
the lowest in the world against an average of 0.5 ha for developing countries and 0.64
ha for the world
Dense forest shrinking in almost all the major States
>57% of total geographical area degraded
NRSA study concluded that forest cover of the country reduced from 16.89% to 14.10%
during the seven years from 1975 to 1982
Source: SFR (2003) and Sehgal & Abrol (1994)

7. Forest Cover of Major States in India (1987-2001)
Forest Cover (in hectares)
140,000
120,000
100,000
1987
80,000
1995
60,000
40,000
2001
20,000
0
AP
MP
UP
Orissa

8. Some of the forest rich states for e.g. Madhya Pradesh , Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand,
Uttranchal , Himachal Pradesh and seven north east states for which human
development reports are available, shrinking dense forest cover adversely affects the
constituents of human development (World Bank 1999, Poffenberger 2000)
In India, about 100 million people reside in forests, and are heavily dependent upon a
variety of forest products and services for their subsistence and livelihood. Another 275
million people live on the forest fringes and earn bulk of their livelihood from forests
(World Bank 1999, Poffenberger 2000)
Direct benefits from
environment
Indirect benefits from environment
Poverty
reduction
Income derived
from forest goods &
services
Enhanced Welfare
Food Requirements
Primary health care
Education

9. Forest Cover of India
Dense Forest
Open Forest
Scrub
Non-Forest
Official statistics on forest cover suggest
that rich diverse forest in the category of
dense forest is consistently declining
while total forest area is increasing, at
least for last two decades

10. Data and Sources
• Distribution of Geographical area and Forest Cover (dense, moderately
dense and open forests) for States
•Production of NTFPs (medicinal herbs, tendu leaves, fruits, honey,
spices, bamboo, agarbatti etc.) during 2000-01 and 2001-02
• HDI values and ranking for States 1991, 2001
• Timber production (2000-01) for States
• Afforestation on Forest Land During 2000-01 and 2001-02 for States
• Fuel wood consumption
Sources:
• State Forest Reports
• Forest Survey of India & Forest Research Institute Statistics
• Global Forest Resources Assessment, FAO 2000, 2001b, 2001c
• World Bank Data

11. Model
HDI i    i FCi   i NTFPi  iTPi  i AFFi  ui
i  1, 2,...,10
Where,
HDI = Value of Human Development Index
FC = Forest Cover (in sq.kms.)
NTFP = Non timber forest products (total production value)
TP = Timber production (in cu.m.)
AFF = Afforestation (in sq.kms.)

12. References
1. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, Policy Responses, Vol.3, Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, Island Press 2005
2. The Earthscan Reader in Forestry and Development, ed. Jeffrey Sayer,
Earthscan 2005
3. People and Forests: Communities, Institutions & Governance, ed. Clark
Gibson, Margaret McKean and Elinor Ostrom, MIT Press, 2000
4. Economics of Environment and evelopment, ed. Pushpam Kumar, Ane
Books 2005
5. FAO Corporate Document Repository, Forestry Department
6. Abrol, I.P. and Sehgal, J.L., 1994. Degraded lands and their rehabilitation
in India. In: Greenland, D.J. and Szabolcs, I. Editors, 1994. Soil Resilience
and Sustainable Land Use CAB International, Wallingford, UK
7. Poffenberger, M. (ed.), 2000. Communities and forest management in
South Asia. A regional profile of the Working Group on Community
Involvement in Forest Management. Forests, People and Policies, IUCN,
Gland, Switzerland. .
8. http://envfor.nic.in/fsi/sfr99/misc/summary.html
9. Forest Principles, Earth Summit 1992, Rio de Janeiro

13. Some possible policy suggestions:
a) More secure PRs over resources
b) Participatory resource management (Joint Forest Management)
involving local communities and public agencies.
c) Effective regulation and enforcement of controls
d) Effective price system for NTFPs
AND…
Generating awareness of ecological &
economic impacts of natural resource
depletion

14. But, its good to see certain
sections of society working
hard on this front !!
Thanks