Joint Forest Management (JFM) in India involves regeneration and conservation of forests through involvement of village communities in association with the state forest departments. According to studies conducted by Ecological and Economics Research Network, the involvement of village communities in JFM is not adequate. To create awareness and enhance decision-making in forest management, the communities have to be involved in systematic Participatory Forest Monitoring (PFM). Thus the aim of this project is as follows:

- Building awareness among the village communities about Joint Forest Management (JFM)

- Conduct of Participatory Forest Monitoring (PFM) through simple scientific methods in 20 villages in Tumkur and Hassan districts of Karnataka, southern India

- Adaptive management of forests based on PFM for conservation and sustainable use of forest resources.

- Institutionalization of PFM in JFM activities

- Firstly awareness about JFM and the importance of PFM will be explained to the community through field demonstration. Alongside, films on JFM and PFM will be prepared and screened in local village theatres, through local cable network and in village festival gatherings to build awareness about JFM and PFM.

PFM is a tool for adaptive forest management. Through simple standard field ecological methods PFM will be adapted. The traditional knowledge of the community will be combined with the scientific information gathered. The information gathered through PFM will be utilized in conservation and sustainable use of forest resources through protection and grazing practices and sustainable harvest of forest products. A team consisting of youth, schoolteachers, students, JFMC members, local NGOs, voluntary agencies, informal groups such as Self Help Groups (SHGs) will be trained to conduct PFM in every village. PFM can be a very cost-effective practice of monitoring and evaluation of JFM for conservation of forests in India as going by the spread of JFM, it is not possible for any agency to periodically conduct monitoring and evaluation studies at the national level. Important criteria and indicators for PFM will be developed, which can signify the impact of JFM on regeneration and conservation of forests. The required institutional arrangements to institutionalize PFM will also be discussed.