How Law Shapes Collaborative Forest Governance: A Focus on Indigenous Peoples in Canada and India

Abstract

Growing recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ legal rights to forests has motivated an increase in collaborative forest governance in recent decades. Collaborative governance literature, however, has paid little attention to the influence of legal approaches. This paper explores two legal instruments, constitutionally entrenched rights and statutory rights, and their influence on six elements of collaborative governance identified in literature: starting conditions, institutional design, facilitative leadership, collaborative process, systems context and outcomes. In Canada, constitutionally entrenched and collective Indigenous rights are interpreted by the courts, resulting in a complex body of jurisprudence. Statutory rights in India are not constitutionally protected and focus on the individual, rather than the collective. In both countries, these legal instruments address conflict, injustice and forest access, and have led to the establishment of different forms of collaborative forest governance.