Forest-people interfaces: from local creativity to global concerns (original) (raw)
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Community forestry is widely considered a socially and environmentally sustainable alternative to industrial forestry. In many tropical countries, large-scale logging operations by non-local interests have resulted in forest degradation, biodiversity loss and livelihood insecurity for forest dependent groups. Proponents of community forestry, also referred to as “social forestry” or “participatory forest management,” claim that community control results in more sustainable forestry operations because locals have a real and concrete interest in maintaining long term forest health and productivity. Community forestry encompasses a wide range of activities, including low-impact selective logging, harvest of non-timber forest products, and management for particular floral and faunal species. Requirements for the success of community forestry initiatives include social, political, and environmental factors.
Community forestry: Conserving forests, sustaining livelihoods and strengthening democracy
Journal of Forest and …, 2007
Community forestry in Nepal has a well-documented history of over 25 years. It is now widely perceived as having real capacity for making an effective contribution towards addressing the environmental, socioeconomic and political problems raised by Nepal's rapid progression from a feudal and isolated state into the modern, globalised world. This paper analyses the evolution of community forestry in Nepal, focusing on how policy, institutions and practical innovations evolved together to create a robust system of community forestry. It highlights the key outcomes of community forestry in the aspects of livelihoods and democracy and identifies two key lessons in relation to forest resource management, social inclusion and contribution to democratization in Nepal. First, mechanisms for policy amendment and revision for community-based forest management need to be based on real-life experiences rather than ad hoc and top-down decisionmaking. Second, if given complete autonomy and devolution of power, community forest user groups can become viable local institutions for sustaining forests and local democracy, and delivering rural development services by establishing partnership with many NGOs and private sector service providers.
International Journal of Food Agriculture and Environment, 2009
This paper examines the concept of sustainable rural livelihood within the context of forest fringe communities in Ghana. The rhetoric of using forestry to sustain community livelihoods has been approached with ambivalence. In this wise, the focus is on the perceived relationships that exist between the forest as an independent resource and the forest fringe communities as dependents of the resource. Within forest-fringe districts like any other local and agrarian environments in Ghana, the livelihoods of the people are largely predicated on subsistent agriculture. Alternatively, it also entails the exploitation of the natural resources including forest resource supplies as integral part of the larger socioeconomic sustainability of the these communities in the district. The issue of rural sustainable livelihoods in forest fringe communities has been perceived as a critical approach to meeting the conservation and management of forest resources and the communities that subsist on the resource. Hitherto, the interventions had almost invariably been presented in the well-recognized/protected forest reserves, under formal institutional management. In recent years however, the need for a shift in this attention has engendered what could be termed as off-reserve forest resources management. In this connection, the off-reserve areas which are predominantly occupied by subsistent farmers in agro-forestry have been advocated as the desired areas for forest resource conservation and management. This is in view of the role played in supplying forest resources both tree and non-tree forest products (NTFPs) on sustainable basis. In this connection, the farmers and forest end-users within forest communities are perceived as agents of operation and change. Ultimately, the long-term goal is to create a strong synergy among various stakeholders of forestry, regarding use rights and responsibilities of conservation and management. This has the avowed aim to promote in the country, particularly in forest fringe communities, commitment to conservation and management of forest resources for sustainable rural livelihoods.
Forests, people and environment: some African perspectives
Southern Forests: a Journal of Forest Science, 2017
Forests in Africa support the livelihoods of millions of people through provision of: timber and nontimber forest products; food and nutrition; energy; and payment of environmental services. However, mismanagement of forests has resulted to deforestation and forest degradation thereby contributing to the increased emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This special issue highlights some of the research presented at a pre-congress workshoporganized by the African Forest Forum and partners at the 2015 World Forest Congress (WFC). In this issue, the main drivers of land degradation are highlighted visa viz: population growth; agricultural expansion; climate variability; drought and energy needs. Promising traditional management practices are identified including age old farmer managed natural regeneration and enclosures. In addition, research presented indicates that age-old systems such as native non-browse shrubs in Ethiopia are important in that they facilitate regeneration of late successional trees species. Furthermore, opportunities for using forests to mitigate climate change (CC) are highlighted with a case study on the economics associated with carbon markets. Furthermore, the issue highlights the methodological challenges of quantifying carbon in African forests. The effect of climate change on threatened forest species and biodiversity in general is discussed; and the associated human disturbances impacting on the population structure of a threatened species e.g. Afzelia Africana in West Africa is presented. The important role of non-timber forest products in income generation for the rural communities and the associated challenges to commercialization with examples from two important tree species, Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) and Baobab (Adansonia digitata) is emphasised. Finally, the issue covered people centred approach in tree planting and management where studies demonstrated that there are still problems of poor participation of local communities due to poor implementation of enabling policies, lack of involvement in initial planning and subsequent lack of clear benefit sharing mechanisms.
Achieving Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests, 2021
Globally, forests cover approximately 30% of the world’s land surface and are vital for meeting human needs for food, fuelwood, timber, fodder and medicines. Forests are also critical in providing a wide range of environmental services, including biodiversity conservation, climate regulation, watershed protection and soil amelioration. Despite the enormous importance of forests in people’s lives and livelihoods, deforestation and forest degradation have increased globally, and at vastly higher rates than ever before. One of the major reasons for the failure of most forestry programmes in tropical developing countries is the exclusion of local people in forest management and poor recognition of local peoples’ customary rights and dependency on forests. Community-based forest management (CBFM), also known as community forestry, social forestry, joint forest management or participatory forestry, has emerged in response to the concern that centralised forest ownership in most developing countries has failed to promote sustainable forest management (SFM). Social, economic and environmental well-being are at the core of the SFM concept and principles. Despite the significant progress towards SFM over the past decades, its implementation is highly variable in the tropics where the capacity to utilise or enforce SFM policies, laws and regulations remains unequal. This chapter provides an overview of CBFM in the tropics. We first discuss the origins and evolution of CBFM, followed by governance issues relating to CBFM, the factors affecting the success (and failure) of CBFM, the design and implementation of CBFM, and CBFM in international forest policy and management.
The Type of Land We Want: Exploring the Limits of Community Forestry in Tanzania and Bolivia
Sustainability
We explore local people’s perspectives of community forest (CF) on their land in Tanzania and Bolivia. Community forest management is known to improve ecological conditions of forests, but is more variable in its social outcomes. Understanding communities’ experience of community forestry and the potential benefits and burdens its formation may place on a community will likely help in predicting its sustainability as a forest and land management model. Six villages, two in Tanzania and four in Bolivia, were selected based on the presence of community forestry in varying stages. We found that communities were generally supportive of existing community forests but cautious of their expansion. Deeper explorations of this response using ethnographic research methods reveal that an increase in community forest area is associated with increasing opportunity costs and constraints on agricultural land use, but not an increase in benefits. Furthermore, community forests give rise to a series...
The evolution of community based forest management in Tanzania
Proceedings of the international workshop on …, 2000
Bringing communities into forest and woodland management roles has a short but rapidly evolving history in Tanzania. The first three community-owned and managed forest reserves were established in September 1994. Today more than 400 000 ha are under the direct management (and sometimes ownership) of over 500 communities. A new National Forest Policy (1998) supports and builds upon this development-one of its objectives is that the 19 million ha of unreserved forest land and woodland come under local guardianship, primarily through the establishment of village forest reserves. Inclusion of local people in the management of the 12.5 million ha reserved estate (forest reserves under central or local government) is also provided for, although within a user-stakeholder context. Several reserves are now co-managed, including catchment forests, whose protection is a priority, and even one where a community is co-managing a substantial commercial plantation. Drafting of a new forest law is well advanced. This will provide, inter alia, for a new concept of "reserve", with individuals, groups and villages able to establish and/or manage reserves, as well as the State. This paper seeks to do two things. First, it seeks to record how community-based forest management has evolved in Tanzania and to describe the directions that it is taking. Second, it seeks to identify a small number of current issues. In particular, the basis upon which local people are being involved in the management of government forest reserves is reassessed. This leads into a discussion of what must become a prime concern of modern sub-Saharan community forestry: the need to move away from usercentric (and primarily South Asia-derived) paradigms, towards a conceptual framework that involves local people living close to forests from the outset as managers in their own right, and not as product users, paying for access by providing protection services. It is argued that until this paradigm shift is made, it will prove difficult for sub-Saharan countries to bring the forest reserves under effective protection and management. The evolution of community-based forest management in Tanzania