The Forest Governance team at ISB focuses on upscaling the recognition of Community Forest Resource (CFR) Rights and community-led governance for the protection and management of forests in India. Along with that it is also working towards strengthening analytical evidence attesting to the effectiveness of community-driven forest landscape restoration and its linkages with formal or customary rights of forest dwellers.

Forests play a pivotal role in the lives of natives and forest dwellers by providing revenue, wealth and subsistence. Nations around the world have introduced several reforms to ensure that decisions involving natural resources are made by people who own, use and manage them. However, the absence of real ownership of land barely offers forest dwellers any rights, thus exacerbating the sufferings of the already marginalized local dwellers.

The team works on projects with special focus on upscaling CFR recognition in forest landscapes and generates evidence for effective community-driven forest landscape restoration. The projects are primarily aimed at recognition of community rights as an instrument for creation of jobs and livelihoods for forest dwelling communities. We work closely with multiple state governments and private sector actors in order to establish large-scale pilots to link CFR communities to industrial value chains for forest-based raw materials. NTFP-based economies linked to sustainable forest management, responsible business practices, and enhanced livelihood security, is the core focus area of our work. In this objective, leveraging advanced technology for mapping and monitoring community forest resources, developing collaborative tools for community-based knowledge management, building a technology stack to facilitate multiple aspects of sustainable forest management, and knowledge sharing amongst stakeholders are some of our other focus areas. 

The Indian School of Business (ISB) is a globally ranked research-driven business school with two campuses at Hyderabad and Mohali. The school offers world-class management education across both its campuses and has grown at a rapid pace since its inception and is already one of the most research productive Indian management institutions. The Bharti Institute of Public Policy is an independent think tank that promotes high-quality research to guide policy formulation and implementation. The institute aims to lead education and research in the domain of public policy. The institute works on policy challenges across diverse domains, primarily Agriculture & Food, Environment, Education, Finance, Governance and Digital Identity.