A Critical Analysis of Forest Management Behaviour of Village Forest Committee (VFC) Members of Karnataka State

The key element of Joint Forest Planning and Management (JFPM) programme is the participation of Village Forest Committee (VFC) members and forest department in all forest development activities. Further, VFC takes the responsibility of protecting, conserving, development and management of the forest initially for 3 years from the establishment of plantation. The present study was conducted in three divisions such as Koppa, Karwar and Kodagu during the year 2014–2015 to analyse the forest management behaviour of VFC members. A total of 180 VFC members both male and female were interviewed using a pretested schedule. It was found that 35.0 per cent of the respondents were in middle age group. It was found that 53.0 per cent of VFC members had average level of management behaviour. There was a significant variation in the overall management behaviour status of VFC members in different forest area divisions in Karnataka state and the variables such as experiences in JFPM programme (r = 0.289), landholding (r = 0.274), mass media use (r = 0.213) and decision making ability (r = 0.274) had a positive and significant relationship with management behaviour at 1 per cent level. The results concluded that independent variables like family size, family dependency ratio, experience in JFPM programme, training need, farming experiences, family encouragement, landholding, participation in JFPM activities, extension contact, social participation, family income, material possession, mass media use, risk orientation, economic motivation and decision making ability had significant contribution to the management behaviour status of VFC members in Karnataka state. The R2 value pointed out that all the 22 independent variables had contributed to the tune of 81.43 per cent of variation in management behaviour status.