NGOs, Donor Agencies, Policy Makers and academic institutions share information and views on developments in JFM and its implementations in India. At present it has 150 members.

As a result of deliberations in the first meeting of the network in 1993, four sub networks are operating at individual levels. The Ecological and Economics Research Network (EERN) is being coordinated by Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. This subnetwork has completed the first part of the study through 11 institutions covering eight states. Institutional Research Network (IRN), resting with the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, is working on developing an institutional maturity index. The Training Research Network (TRN) is assigned to Indian Institute of Biosocial Research And Development (IBRAD), Calcutta, and is involved in dissemination of standard training techniques to associated role players. The Gender and Equity group has evolved into an independent and strong research and advocacy unit.

At the Fifth Annual Meeting various controversial issues were debated. The keynote address by Dr. Kamla Choudhary, chairperson of the Vikram Sarabhai Foundation and former chairperson of the National Wasteland Development Board raised the issue of Challenges of the 21st century- poverty and partnership highlighting the linkages between the Forest Departments and NGOs and the civil society in dealing with the manifold problems encountered in preserving the rich forests of India. The Forest Department has initiated around 25000 Joint Forest Committees. There are around 10000 or so informal committees of local people who are protecting forest cover for their own survival. She pointed out that the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development has India’s JFM as an important centre piece to be endorsed and promoted in other countries. This meeting laid the foundation for strengthening the partnership to rediscover our villagers and their strength. Each subnetwork group reviewed its progress over the last one year.

On the second day of the meeting, various members of the network made interesting presentations The report of the expert group on JFM constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) was presented by Anil Shah, head of Ahmedabad based Development Support Centre. On the issue of jurisdiction the expert group recommended setting up separate representative forums for conflict resolution at two levels i.e., one at the centre level and the other at the state level. Further the state may set-up forums at district and even at a local level as the case may be. On the question of the conflict between the working plan and village microplan on ecological issues such as the silvicultural systems adopted, it was recommended that once a microplan is approved by the competent authority taking due care that it is in conformity with the National Forest Policy, it should be deemed to have superseded the working plan of that area to that extent. On the issue of extending JFM beyond degraded forests, the expert group said that not only should JFM be extended and strengthened in the Protected area network, it was recommended that regarding the extension of JFM and formation of new FPCs, the degree of the success of JFM should be the guiding factor, irrespective of the nature of the land or any other character of the forests.

The expert group recommended that all adults of the village (regardless) of the gender should be eligible to become members of the JFM committee. It suggested 33% of the membership in the executive committee should be reserved for the women, in addition, it may be laid down that 33% of the participants in the meetings of this committee must be women members to complete the quorum. The group strongly recommended that self initiated groups practising JFM be recognised and registered after an enquiry or on the basis of the records. Wherever monetary benefits are intended for the FPCs, the computations should be based on gross income and not on net income. The expert group felt that the presence of formal development institutions is enough to look after the development of the village, thus the village forest fund should now be called the village forest development fund and will be utilised for conservation and development needs of the forests. Moreover not less than 25% of the share of the village community be deposited in the Village Forest Development Fund. Recording its concern over the lack of fund for JFM , the expert group felt the need for a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for JFM. The expert group recommended the setting up of an appropriate monitoring mechanism as soon as possible, it also stressed on integrating JFM philosophy as part of the curricula of the forestry training institutes. It pointed out that withdrawal of Van Mukhiya institutions and related orders should be seriously considered. Lastly, it recommended that a standing committee should be set up at the national level comprising members of different skills, specialities and interests berating on JFM philosophy and a national level conference on JFM should be held every year.

**Almost all the recommendations of the expert group were accepted by the house, though there were debates and discussions on some of them. The clause relating to the competitions based on the gross income was not very well received particularly by the Forest department, expressing fear of loss of a considerable amount of the revenue and not being able to cover at least the harvest cost.

Dr. Arvind Khare, former executive director of SPWD and former director of Worldwide Fund for Nature, and Dr. H.N. Hiramath, a representative of IDS, an NGO from Dharwar, Karnataka presented an interesting paper on leasing to forest land to industry, At the end of the session it was unanimously decided for a signature campaign to be submitted to the MoEF.

Dr. Neela Mukherjee, professor at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, Mussoorie, presented an interesting case study highlighting the role of forests in food security of the rural poor. The findings necessitated an immediate thought process on the extent JFM can contribute to the food security of the people dependent on forest. The discussions led to identify promotion of Non Timber Forest Produce based enterprises as one of the probable mechanisms to make JFM as a viable source of food. An emerging need was felt for evolving an appropriate institutional mechanism to ensure effective partnership between the various developing institutions