Innovations towards prosperity emerging in locally controlled forest business models and prospects for scaling up

Abstract

Abstract The combined impacts of multiple locally-controlled forestry (LCF) businesses will play a key role in shaping the fate of forest landscapes. This article analyses how such enterprises contribute to a broad notion of prosperity as ‘that which people value and have reason to value in line with the common good’. It focuses on innovations that are found in those businesses and highlights how these differ from other models of business, which often pursue, for a limited number of people, a limited subset of that which people value. We present an analysis of 50 case studies from 24 countries which illustrate how LCF businesses advance many values that make up prosperity in part because their collective ownership involves people who live with the consequences of their decisions in those forest landscapes. The cases are analyzed using a framework of six value categories oriented to a conception of the common good, with six indicators for business contributions to those values. Our study finds organizational innovations in each area that can be scaled-up to advance broader prosperity in relation to forests: democratic oversight bodies governing environmental and cultural stewardship, negotiated benefit distribution and financial vigilance mechanisms, networks for better access to markets and decision-making, processes for conflict resolution and justice, processes of entrepreneurial training and empowerment for both men and women, and branding that reinforces local visions of prosperity. We conclude by examining the need and prospect for upscaling such innovations by strengthening economically sustainable, tiered producer organizations. We argue that such upscaling is indeed possible and imperative for delivering the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change.