that in many cases it has had a negative effect on fuelwood use by the poor (Khare and others 2000, Sundar 2000, Sarin and others, 1988). We pursue this line of reasoning and ask whether participation in JFM or other forms of traditional community forestry programs has resulted in a change in forest resource consumption.

We ask two main questions: a) Who participates in community forestry and what are the determinants of participation? and b) What is the impact of participation on household fuelwood consumption? Fuelwood consumption is treated as an indicator of resource use as well as household welfare. To answer these questions, we use a database of 524 villages and 8,307 households in five states in India. This data are obtained from the fifty-fourth round of the National Sample Survey of India. Our data do not allow us to distinguish between state-initiated (JFM) and other traditional (self-initiated or historic) forms of community forestry (CF).<sup>2</sup> We include both types of forestry projects in our definition of community forestry.

The first part of our analysis focuses on villages that are engaged in community forestry. Here we try to understand what determines village choice to participate in CF activities. The goal is also to examine if there are some institutional biases toward socially and economically better-off villages. Our results do not support the existence of any clear biases. Proximity to forests, the presence of an educated person in the village (which we treat as a proxy for leadership) and fuelwood dependence are significant factors in explaining village participation in community forestry. Social and economic heterogeneity do not appear to influence collective action.

At the household level, we assess who participates in community forestry and whether this has an effect on fuelwood consumption. There are two distinct and opposite ways in which community forestry can affect fuelwood consumption. If community forestry results in net restrictions on forest use, we expect to see a decline in fuelwood consumption.<sup>3</sup> However, if community forestry results in forest regeneration and if forest closure is carefully planned, then medium and long-term program effects will not be negative.<sup>4</sup> Even in the short term, households that participate in community forestry may have better access to forest resources. This will happen where community and state agreements result in plantation work, forest clearing, lopping, and other forest management activities that make fuelwood or fodder available (Khare and others 2000). This is the ideal way in which CF should work – we seek to assess whether it works in this fashion in reality.

To summarize our main household level results, we find that household participation in CF is influenced by state geographic and policy differences, literacy, fuelwood scarcity, caste and occupational groups, and peer group effects. A key policy relevant result is that scarcity is correlated with participation. This suggests that new government guidelines to

> 2  Orissa and Uttar Pradesh in particular include both varieties of community organizations.

> 3  Forest conservation is a key goal of traditional and state-initiated community forestry and has resulted in restrictions on fuelwood use in many JFM cases (Khare and others 2000). 4 When coppicing species such as teak are planted as part of forest management, fuelwood benefits accrue even in the short-run.

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