Women And Natural Resource Management: A Study Of ‘Communities Of Practice’ Prevailing In Women Farmers’ Community for Management of Water and Forests of Lesser Himalayan Region in India

This paper draws on a case study of women involvement in the water and forest management in lesser Himalayan region of Nainital District, India and provides insights into the characteristics of Communities of Practice (CoPs) prevailing in the hill women community for water and forest management of the region. Social participation in formal and informal communities by the women indicated that more number of women participates in informal community practices. Majority of the women were not the member of any formal organization. Though, most of the women were member of the one society, the office bearers were least, majority of the women were peripheral members in the CoPs of village community and least were active members. As nature of participation of the women, they considered knowledge features as very important giving I rank to “Having informal meetings, fun and nonwork-related activities”. Mediocre sense of belongingness in community of practices was shown by majority of women. The percentage of attitude of women towards Community of Practice as measured by people‟s participation index was highly favorable. Lesser Himalayan region of Nainital district has demonstrated that Communities of Practice and smallholder‟s tacit knowledge can work for each other complementarily and therefore CoPs through smallholder‟s tacit knowledge is highly operational. The CoPs model for natural resource management is of great relevance to
ther fragile parts of Asia, which are losing natural resources in terms of the twin goals of national and food security.