A game model of people's participation in forest management in Northern India

Abstract

People have a marginal role in managing forests located in the vicinity of their villages inNorthern India. This situation is scrutinised in this paper by studying strategic play of forestusers. Thereto, a 1 versus n−1 game of people's participation in forest management is estimatedfor three institutional and historical distinct cases at the state and village level. Critical discount factors are derived to verify whether incentives exist for villagers to mutual participate in managing commonly used forests. This paper find such incentives in varying degrees for games at the state level and for games in 28 of the considered 32 villages.