ABSTRACT
Part I made the case that a discursive alliance exists around the popular reform narrative of forest management in both India and Nepal, although there are some differences between the two countries. The popular narrative is not static and there has been a dynamic process of adaptation and strategizing between the main actors in both countries. Nonetheless, it has had considerable long-term stability and centres on the related issues of participation in management by local forest users and redistributive and pro-poor justice and human rights. The opposing narrative of classic, state-led, top-down forest management has arguably had a longer and more stable history and is deployed to counter the popular narrative, to adapt, and even to cede ground to it when politically expedient. However, while this book advocates the former, the popular narrative contains important contradictions in the context of Indian and Nepalese forest policy reform. It is important to discuss these so that participatory forest management (PFM) is not, once more, uncritically recommended when there are unexamined problems at the heart of participation and the wider narrative of which it is a part.
