In the era of consumerism the rate at which the natural resources like forests are depleting is as never before. Being everyone's property, forests have become no one's property. Management of forest resources as common property is by definition situation specific, therefore, the investigations or the researches in this field have mainly focused on the interrelationship between the resource, the community and its institutions, and other features of local situation. In this paper, through the selected case studies of the local level institutions such as Van Panchayats and Joint Forest Management Committees of Kumaon Division, Uttarakhand, an attempt has been made to analyze the impact of the process of decentralization on forest resources and the patterns of interaction between the institutions created at the third tier of government. The study of Van Panchayats has illustrated questions of overarching bureaucratic influence and ‘the politics of presence’ remain pertinent if decentralization has to achieve its radical potential.
Decentralization, Common Property Resources, Van Panchayats, Joint Forest Management Committees
