Community forestry

Community forestry allows local people to directly manage the forests in which they live and upon which they rely for their livelihood and survival. Under such a system they have a vested interest in improving their living standards while protecting the environment they live in.

By contrast, forest management that emphasizes the role of production for profit has caused severe forest destruction and has contributed significantly to the current level of global deforestation.

A growing success

Local groups living in forested areas of Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Tanzania, the Philippines and India, for example, have been practicing community forestry for centuries. At the community level they have developed sophisticated long-term management practices.

Successful examples of modern community forestry can be found throughout Asia, Latin America and Africa. In the Philippines almost 3 million hectares of forestland in more than 600 sites nationwide was under community control by 1997. While in India, more than 63,000 groups have enrolled in Joint Forest Management programs to regenerate around 14 million hectares. Similarly in Nepal, 9000 forest user groups are trying to regenerate 700,000 hectares of forest land, and in Brazil, farmers participate in managing 2.2 million hectares as extractive reserves.

Despite these positive examples, progress towards increased stewardship over forest by local communities has been slow, in part because forestry officials are usually sceptical about the idea. This comes from a belief that local communities are not capable of managing forests in the way forestry officials would like to see them managed. After years of central control, most forest officials are reluctant to give up their influence, and concession holders their profits. In addition, many forest communities often lack the technical, institutional and organizational skills needed to handle the task.

The challenge

Community forestry involves decentralization and greater stakeholder participation in forest management. Until now efforts have been focused on the primary stakeholders such as individuals, community groups, NGOs and extension services. It is increasingly apparent, however, that efforts must also be directed at higher levels to create policy and legislation that supports local community management. This requires greater awareness-raising and the development of guidelines for both decision-makers and those who create policy. Continued dialogue between forest stakeholders and decision makers at all levels of government is essential.

Community forestry has increasingly taken the form of co-management, rather than absolute control over forests by the forest communities alone. This means the different stakeholders in a project are required to understand different demands and how to negotiate alternative sets of rights and responsibilities.

CIFOR's role

CIFOR is working with international community forestry networks to increase the effectiveness of international efforts to support community forestry. It is analyzing the impacts of community forest policies and the institutions supporting them in several countries in Asia and Africa. CIFOR is also examining the impact of decentralization policies on local communities and their management. At the local level, CIFOR is working in dozens of villages around the world to better understand how adaptive management approaches can be created to assist in managing conflict and improve coordination among stakeholders. CIFOR has detailed information on local communities' dependence on forests across a range of conditions and is tracking the factors affecting this dependence.