There is a huge population in the natural forests of the Himalaya, including forest dependent indigenous societies. These communities are completely dependent on forests not only for fulfilment of their basic resource needs, but also for their livelihood (Ministry of Environment and Forests 2004). Hence, forests are not only been integral to the development of Himalayan economy, culture and conservation, but are also an important mitigating agent to climate change (Tiwari 2010). In Himalaya, 85 per cent forests are state property in which rural communities enjoy traditional resource use rights and concessions and have contributed significantly towards their conservation for thousands of years (Forest Survey of India 2010). However, after the creation of a network of protected areas, community resource use activities have been prohibited in state forests diverting mounting resource use pressure to scarce (14 per cent) civil forests and increasing illegitimate encroachment and degradation of state forests. Consequently, forest resources have depleted steadily and significantly due to collapse of traditional forest management institutions and climate change (Tiwari and Joshi 2011). This has adversely affected basic ecosystem services, contributed to climate change and destabilised indigenous adaptation mechanism (Ravindranath et al. 2011). It is therefore, highly imperative to bring all categories of forests under participatory management through interlinking forest conservation with rural livelihood and climate change adaptation by establishing, reviving and strengthening traditional forest governance institutions at grass root level.

The main objective of this paper is to evolve an institutional governance framework for participatory, integrated and adaptive management of forest resources with case illustration of Kumaon Himalaya. Besides carrying out a comprehensive survey of participatory forest management literature, an empirical and qualitative assessment of recently revived Forest Panchayats and Joint Forest Management (JFM) experiments in civil forests and their potential contribution to enhancing resilience of both natural and social systems to climate change was carried out. It was observed that in several cases participatory forest management system has not only enhanced carbon sequestration capacity of forest ecosystem through increase in forest cover, but also strengthened community resilience by improving traditional adaption practices in water, biodiversity and livelihood. With this in mind, an institutional framework was evolved for participatory and adaptive governance of state property forests in agreement with state forest department and local communities. It is expected that proposed institutionalisation of state forests will go a long way in mitigating climate change across Himalayan mountains and enhancing community coping mechanism to long term impacts of climate change.

References
Forest Survey of India 2010, ‘State of forests’, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Dehra Dun.

Ministry of Environment and Forests 2004, ‘India’s initial national communication to UNFCCC (NATCOM)’, Government of India, New Delhi.

Ravindranath, N. H., Murthy, I. K. and  Swarnim, S. 2011, ‘Options for forest management for coping with climate change in South Asia’, Climate Change and Food Security in South Asia Part 6, pp. 343-358.
Tiwari, P. C. and Joshi, B. 2011, ‘Changing rainfall pattern and its impact on food security in Himalaya: Adaptation by marginalized mountain communities’, United Nation’s University (UNU) International Workshop on Indigenous Peoples, Marginalized Populations & Climate Change Vulnerability, Adaptation and Traditional Knowledge, 19-21 July 2011, Mexico City, Mexico.