Abstract
Community forestry (CF) is widely viewed as the solution to many of the challenges facing forest management and governance in the Asia-Pacific region. However, it is often felt that CF is not delivering on its potential. This paper focuses on one possible limitation: the role of regulations in curbing communities’ ability to make a living from their timber resources. The work covers Cambodia, Nepal and Vietnam, using policy analyses, national level experts’ workshops, and focus group discussions in two CF sites in each country. The results highlight the fact that there are numerous, often prohibitive, regulations in place. One challenge is the regulations’ complexity, often requiring a level of capacity far beyond the ability of community members and local government staff. The paper puts forward various recommendations including simplifying regulations and making them more outcome-based, and facilitating key stakeholders, including government and community based organizations, working together on the design and piloting of forest monitoring based on mutually agreed forest management outcomes. The recommendations reflect the belief that for CF to succeed, communities must be allowed to make a meaningful living from their forests, a result of which would be increased investment in sustainable forest management.
Highlights
Countries across the Asia-Pacific region have faced numerous challenges related to the management of their forests
If the government decides that a Community forestry (CF) is in an area where they would like to develop another project, the CF can be taken away and the community can possibly be displaced
In the absence of any notion of due process or compensation for loss, this was perceived as a barrier to the development of CFs, amongst others, in more accessible and populated areas
Summary
Countries across the Asia-Pacific region have faced numerous challenges related to the management of their forests. The causes ( manifested as impacts) of these challenges have been highlighted as high deforestation rates [1], persistent poor forest governance [2], continued rural poverty [3] and forest conflicts [4]. Governments have taken various initiatives to address these challenges with one of the most prominent being forest tenure reform, including the development of community forestry (CF). While there have been numerous examples from the region where CF has contributed to poverty reduction and enhanced forest quality (e.g., [10,11,12,13]), some question the tangible benefits from these initiatives [14]. One of the most common issues identified is the narrow focus on non-timber forest products (NTFPs) when pursuing forest development. In the context of this paper regulations are “rules prescribed to control the use of forest resources and to assure that the management of these resources conforms to government-defined standards” [19]
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