Community Forestry Program Research Articles

Local People Attitudes towards Community Forestry Practices: A Case Study of Kosti Province-Central Sudan

This paper examines the attitudes of local communities toward community forestry programmes implemented by a project under the CF approach in Kosti area, based on a survey of 100 people living there. The household was the basic unit of data collection; ten villages were selected as study localities. Ten respondents from each village were randomly chosen for the interview. Frequency distribution results showed that almost all the respondents have a particularly favourable perception of the community forestry programmes implemented and they perceive the best type of management for running these forests which is to be owned and managed by them. They participated in different programe activities and willing to further participation in tree planting activities. Women have possessed positive attitudes towards community forestry although they were not fully involved in community forestry Practices. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis showed a statistical significant relation between some selected variables (Respondents age, educational level, main occupation, respondents indigenous knowledge, family uses of different forestry products, awareness of causes of forest destruction and finally respondents awareness of environmental problems) exerted important influences on the attitudes and participation of respondents. This study suggests that the project and the forest services should continue addressing local development needs, encourage women's participation in community forestry, and work toward dispute settlement of community forest-user groups, if it wants to win the support of local communities for long-term environmental conservation goals.

Community Forests Ensuring Local Governance and Livelihood: A Case Study in Sunwal VDC, Nawalparasi, Nepal

This paper analyses local governance in forest resource management through people's participation and the ways it relates to the contribution in securing livelihood. This case study was conducted in Sunwal VDC of Western Tarai, Nepal, and information was collected through direct observation, household survey, key informant interview, focus group discussion and analysis of secondary information. It discusses a few examples of how the community forestry programme can be used as a means to promote participation of the women, the poor, disadvantaged and marginalized group in forest resource management, as well as enhancing livelihood and improving the forest resource management in their locality. It is found that though the community forestry programme has positive impacts, it faces several constraints and challenges. The results of the case study clearly indicate that community forestry processes must address the political, economic and social needs of the forest users, and also provide a neutral platform on which the poor and disadvantaged group can express their voices.The Geographical Journal of Nepal, Vol. 8-9, 2010-2011: 33-42

Forest cover change and land tenure change in Mexico’s avocado region: Is community forestry related to reduced deforestation for high value crops?

Forest cover change in highland pine-oak forests of Michoacan, Mexico is due to a process of conversion of natural forests to avocado orchards. Privately-owned avocado orchards are found on land that was common forest before the 1992 Reform of the Mexican Constitution. We ask how forest cover change was facilitated by policy changes that affected land tenure rules and existing community forestry programs. We use a comparative case study of four communities, an analysis of forest cover change, and interviews and household surveys. Results show that 33.1% of forest cover was lost over a 16-year-period across the region. However, two forestry case study communities lost 7.2% and 15.1% of forest cover, while two adjacent non-forestry communities lost 86.5% and 92.4%, respectively. Interview data show that the Reform of Article 27 combined with the 1992 Forestry Law led to collapse of local governance, illegal division of common forests, and illegal logging in the two non-forestry communities.

Local Outcomes of Federal and State Urban & Community Forestry Programs

Increasing local urban and community forestry (U&CF) programs and activities in the United States is a goal of state and federal U&CF programs. This study found local U&CF programs within the 50 United States increased in activity between 1997 and 2002 at a 2.1% annual rate of increase. Several attributes of state U&CF forestry programs from a multiple regression model and correla-tion analysis partially explain the increase in local U&CF program activity. The number of technical assists in a state were a strong pre-dictor for increased local activity. Less certainty was found with state money used to fund the state U&CF program or the use of cost-share assistance (Federal Cooperative Forestry Assistance Challenge Cost-share Grants) and this increase. Study findings provide evidence that state and federal U&CF programs within the United States are furthering the building of capacity and development of local U&CF programs.

Balancing shifting cultivation and forest conservation: lessons from a “sustainable landscape” in southeastern Mexico

Shifting cultivation is often perceived to be a threat to forests, but it is also central to the culture and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Balancing agriculture and forest conservation requires knowledge of how agricultural land uses evolve in landscapes with forest conservation initiatives. Based on a case study from Quintana Roo, Mexico, and remote sensing data, we investigated land use and land cover change (LUCC) in relation to accessibility (from main settlement and road) in search of evidence for agricultural expansion and/or intensification after the initiation of a community forestry program in 1986. Intensification was through a shortening of the fallow period. Defining the sampling space as a function of human needs and accessibility to agricultural resources was critical to ensure a user-centered perspective of the landscape. The composition of the accessible landscape changed substantially between 1976 and 1997. Over the 21-year period studied, the local population saw the accessible landscape transformed from a heterogeneous array of different successional stages including mature forests to a landscape dominated by young fallows. We detected a dynamic characterized by intensification of shifting cultivation in the most accessible areas with milpas being felled more and more from young fallows in spite of a preference for felling secondary forests. We argue that the resulting landscape provides a poorer resource base for sustaining agricultural livelihoods and discuss ways in which agricultural change could be better addressed through participatory land use planning. Balancing agricultural production and forest conservation will become even more important in a context of intense negotiations for carbon credits, an emerging market that is likely to drive future land changes worldwide.

Can Bureaucratic Control Improve Community Forestry Governance?

The Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) of Nepal has recently passed a proposal and drafted an amendment bill to revise the Forest Act 1993. This Act provided the legal foundation for community forestry programme in Nepal during the past two decades. However, the MoFSC has justified its recent move for legal change by citing anecdotal cases of irregularities and illegal felling in some parts of Terai and Churia region. But the Federation of Community Forest Users, Nepal (FECOFUN) and other civil society organizations have strongly opposed this move. As a result, positions on the move have polarized, and sparked off resistance and opposition at local to national levels. In this context, this paper examines the proposal in terms of the process and contents, and assesses how it impacts the community forestry programme and whether the proposed change would bring about expected outcomes. Doing this we hope to enrich the deliberation on this issue.We suggest that, in terms of the process, MoFSC has undermined the multi-stakeholder and deliberative process, which was being progressively adopted over the past few years in forestry sector policy making. Some key assumptions behind this proposal have therefore become flawed. We also find that the proposed changes stipulated in the proposal are likely to aggravate the problems in community forest user groups — particularly corruption, illegal felling, and inequity — that MoFSC commits to resolve. We suggest that multi-stakeholder based and deliberative process can help identify the problems and remove flaws of this proposal. This process needs to be informed by a robust and independent study of the problems in order to be able to determine workable solutions.

Assessing the status of three mangrove species restored by the local community in the cyclone-affected area of the Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar

This paper assesses the extent of success and failure of mangrove plantations in Myanmar, restored by local people with the help of foresters under a community forestry program initiated in 1995. The species of these restored plantations are Avicennia officinalis, Avicennia marina and Heritiera fomes, each of which was restored on two plots, one on low and one on high ground, yielding a total of six plots. These plots have been continuously monitored in order to investigate survival and growth rates. The plots were established on abandoned land that had been previously used for paddy cultivation. Cyclone Nargis hit these plantations during the monitoring period, at the beginning of May, 2008. As a consequence, the survival rates of A. officinalis on low ground and A. marina on high ground declined slightly, but the overall affect was not severe. Excluding individuals affected by the cyclone, height and diameter growth of A. officinalis and A. marina were significantly higher on low ground than on high ground, i.e. on sites thought to be consistently similar to the natural habitats of these species. Contrary to these two Avicennia species, the height growth of H. fomes was higher on high ground than on low ground; the diameter growth was not significantly different. As the growth of H. fomes was very slow, however, it is still not possible to describe the differences clearly. This study may provide useful guidelines for foresters and local people to establish successful mangrove restorations and to predict production from community-owned mangrove forests.

Hutan Kemasyarakatan (Community Forestry Programme) and REDD

The purpose of this study was to investigate if an community forestry programme (HKm) could be one of the main tool for REDD+ in Indonesia. Recently, considerable numbers of countries including Norway, England, Korea and etc. have invested 69 million US$ in total to Indonesia for implementation of REDD+. However, forest dependent people without a communal right are subject to poor forest governance during a stream of REDD+ in Indonesia. This study suggest that HKm are needed to be a tool for REDD+ in order to achieve the objects of REDD+ in terms of Equity, Efficiency, and Effectiveness (3Es) by stimulating local and Indigenous peoples to participate in REDD+. As a result of our study, Indonesia government have designated only 200,000 ha for HKm area by 2007. Indonesia government have a week political will to extend its area to give a communal right to those peoples who dwell in state forests and HKm application process is complicated and slow. HKm has a potential to be main tool for REDD+ in Indonesia. However HKm will be difficult to be main tool for REDD+ without resolving current obstacles.

Advancing equity in community forestry: recognition of the poor matters

SUMMARY The community forestry program in Nepal has been advancing as a successful means of improving the condition of forests. However, as in other areas around the world, Nepal's community forestry initiative continues to face unresolved equity issues. This paper seeks to explore underlying causes of inequity using contemporary theories of justice. Examining two community forest user groups in the middle hill districts, the study finds that lack of recognition in interpersonal and public spheres exacerbated the powerlessness of marginalized people, reducing their participation in decision-making. The paper argues that, while distributional rules advanced by the program are crucial, the problem of recognition remains an unaddressed but necessary pre-condition for achieving equity. This suggests that policy and practice in community forestry needs to focus on broader political questions, including representation in decision making, making space for the voice of members to influence decisions, and transfor...

Equity in Community Forests in Bhutan

SUMMARY The equity of Bhutan's new community forestry program was assessed after three years of experience with timber harvesting. Despite the impressive achievements of community forestry programs elsewhere in South Asia, there is increasing evidence that poor and disadvantaged members of community forestry management groups benefit less than other members. We compared this with the situation in Bhutan. All households in three villages were ranked by socio-economic status before analyzing the distribution of community forest (CF) products. A household survey and focus group interviews provided more detailed information on how the socio-economic groups participated in the CFs. Economic equity (distribution of benefits) and political equity (participation in decision making) were found to be higher than reports from neighbouring countries. We discuss the cultural context and hypothesise that these unexpected findings can be attributed to four factors: ethnic homogeneity, active participation of women, supp...

Women in forestry: A study of Kenya's Green Belt Movement and Nepal's Community Forestry Program

This literature review evaluates two programs that attempt to involve women in community-based forestry projects: the Green Belt Movement led by Wangari Maathai in Kenya, and Nepal's government-sponsored Community Forestry Program. To evaluate the extent to which each program is a successful community-based conservation venture, the recommendations developed at the Airlie House Community Based Conservation Workshop in 1993 are used. These recommendations stipulate that factors such as culture, participation, resource ownership, and skills and knowledge transfer must be taken into account for a community-based conservation venture to be successful. To evaluate the extent to which each program is successful in securing the active involvement of women, the study evaluates how well they overcome a set of four factors that commonly limit women's involvement in forestry projects, developed by Molnar in 1997; this list includes limited access to productive resources, limited decision-making roles, limited participation in the labor market and lack of incentives for project workers to incorporate women. By evaluating each program's strengths and weaknesses, the paper reveals certain characteristics, such as cultural awareness and the incorporation of civic education and skill development, that community forestry programs must have in order to successfully involve women in their efforts.

Outmigrating men: A window of opportunity for women's participation in community forestry?

Encouraging women to become active participants has been an important goal of the community forestry program in Nepal. Achieving this goal has been elusive, and studies have identified a range of formal structures and informal processes that can exclude women. This study explored whether there is a relationship between men's outmigration and women's participation in community forestry. Data were collected using a semi-structured survey, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with women from two community forest user groups. The analysis indicated that men's outmigration provides a “window of opportunity” to increase women's participation, as the left-behind wives were more likely to attend and voice their opinions during the general assembly. However, the extent to which outmigration represents an opportunity depends on family type and composition. The women who do not have an adult man in the household are those who become most involved in the community forest user group. By participating in the general assembly, they may achieve increased participation in forest decisions.

Social Capital and Conflict Resolution: Lessons from a Community Forestry Programme in Karnataka

The paper highlights the conflict in benefit sharing among four different communities (hamlets) spread over different geographical areas in a conservation and development programme. All the four hamlets are expected to contribute equally to the conservation and management activities. In return, these hamlets are provided financial assistance to be utilised for development activities. Problem in the community arises when the grants under the development component are released – as to how the grants are to be shared among different hamlets? The paper seeks to understand how individuals/sections within groups use conflict as a tool or strategy to get benefits and how certain actors involved in the process attempt to minimize or resolve community/group conflict? How does the Managing Committee negotiate in the conflict situation with the beneficiaries and how such conflicts can have a negative impact on the conservation activities is also discussed.

Joint forest management in India: Experiences of two decades

Joint Forest Management (JFM), embracing the philosophy of forest conservation and livelihood improvement through cooperation between state and civil society, has emerged over the past decades both as a specific paradigm of forest governance in India and as India's largest community forestry program. The JFM program, evolved during early 1970s covering a few forest villages as a model for reversing the trend of degraded forest ecosystem through the active protection by local villagers. The JFM program is implemented currently by 106,482 Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMC) and it covers 22 million ha of forests spread across 28 constituent states of India and union territories. JFM emerged against a backdrop of two centuries of centralised bureaucratic control over forest management in India. Centralized control during the 19th and 20th centuries failed either to conserve resources or to contribute substantially to the well-being of local populations. However, inconsistent persuasions from decentralization policies in India under present forest policy (1988) have prompted people to analyse the theoretical basis for accepting that decentralization would bring improvements in forest ecosystem management. Still others have contested the de facto rationale for decentralization (i.e., improved forest management) and have suggested that decentralization may be a manipulation by elites to serve their own interests or to shift power, for example from national to international agencies that have funded decentralization. Thirty years from its inception, there are now concerns for the recent effectiveness of JFM (over the past 20 years) because it is a group action that is getting old and is perhaps losing some of its pioneering drive and innovativeness. Although JFM has been administered nationally, decisions on implementation detail have been left to the individual states, resulting in different strategies. The long history of JFM has also provided scope for experiences with it to change over time as well as between places. Given the range of experiences with and perceptions of JFM, as well as the importance of the objectives JFM ostensibly serves, the time is ripe therefore for a retrospective evaluation to take stock of its actual achievements, its status and ways forward. The current paper seeks to provide such a review and analysis. The paper highlights design and implementation issues related to government resolutions, benefits-sharing and forest offences. It also assesses the critical design factors and key drivers responsible for institutional reforms. The paper evaluates impacts of protection on forest productivity and on the livelihoods of local communities. It highlights that the JFM program, by virtue of the diversity of its implementation, provides an ideal laboratory for exploring why similar reforms can lead to different outcomes. The paper argued that though there are supporting government policy and guideline and massive fund support, why there has been a low down of enthusiasm for JFM in the last two decades. From experiences, it suggests strategies for its revival and JFM can further contribute effective toward forest conservation and enhanced livelihood opportunities in the future.

Ethnobotany and phytomedicine of the upper Nyong valley forest in Cameroon

This paper presents the results of an assessment of the ethnobotanical uses of some plants recorded in upper Nyong valley forest implemented by the Cameroon wildlife conservation society project (CWCS). Forestry transects in 6 localities, followed by socio-economic study were conducted in 250 local inhabitants. As results, medicinal information on 140 plants species belonging to 60 families were recorded. Local people commonly use plant parts which included leaves, bark, seed, whole plant, stem and flower to cure many diseases. According to these plants, 8% are use to treat malaria while 68% intervenes to cure several others diseases as described on. There is very high demand for medicinal plants due to prevailing economic recession, however their prices are high as a result of prevailing genetic erosion. This report highlighted the need for the improvement of effective management strategies focusing on community forestry programmes and aims to encourage local people participation in the conservation of this forest heritage to achieve a sustainable plant biodiversity and conservation for future posterity. Key words: Conservation, ethnobotanical uses, diseases, posterity, Nyong valley.

Local pricing system of forest products and its relations to equitable benefit sharing and livelihood improvement in the lowland community forestry program in Nepal

The study examines the relationships between local pricing system of forest products and its effects on equitable benefit sharing and livelihood improvement of user households who are living in and around the forests. The community forest user groups of lowland in Nepal have practiced low pricing strategy for high value forest products considering the access of socio-economically poor households. However, the study suggests that even though the low pricing strategy was designed considering poor households, rich households greatly benefited from the forest benefits. The study further enlightens that the low price for high value forest products particularly timber is counterproductive for equitable benefit sharing among the user households in the areas of heterogeneous socio-economic conditions. In addition, the strategy is defective for collecting adequate community fund and carrying out enough livelihood improvement activities at the local level.

A conjoint analysis of farmer preferences for community forestry contracts in the Sumber Jaya Watershed, Indonesia

A wide range of policy instruments have been devised and applied to support the goals of sustainable forestry management. Community forestry programs can contain elements of several of those instruments. This paper considers the design of community forestry contracts in the Sumber Jaya area of Indonesia where community forestry contracts are agreements between the Forestry Department and community groups that provide group members with time-bound leasehold rights to protection forests, on the condition that farmers abide by specified land-use restrictions and pay any required fees. Farmers perceive that the contracts represent a bundle of restrictions and inducements, some of which are explicitly stated in the contract and others that are implied by the contract. Conjoint analysis was used to quantify farmers' tradeoffs among the explicit and implicit attributes of the contracts. The results of logit and ordered logit models show that farmers are most concerned about the length of the contract, and relatively unconcerned about requirements on tree density and species composition. An implicit attribute, greater access to forestry and agroforestry extension, emerges as an important implicit attribute. The results imply that farmers in this part of Indonesia would be willing to abide by fairly strict limitations on land use, provided that they can be assured of long-term rights to the planted trees.

State Urban and Community Forestry Program Funding, Technical Assistance, and Financial Assistance within the 50 United States

This article describes the enabling legislation for technical and financial assistance, types and frequency of technical and financial assistance, and funding of urban & community forestry (U&CF) programs to the 50 United States. In 2002, $30.7 million in federal and state money financed the 50 state U&CF programs. Federal funding accounted for 60% ($18.5 million) and state funding was 33% ($10.2 million) of the total. Half of the $36 million federal government U&CF allocation in 2002 went directly to state U&CF programs. State U&CF programs distributed 38.3% of program monies (from all funding sources) to local programs through grants. Remaining program monies were used to support state U&CF programs through providing technical assistance, council administration, volunteer partnerships, and program administration. Nearly 60% of the state U&CF coordinators suggested funding of their state U&CF was inadequate to meet current needs and indicated a 60.9% mean increase in program funding was needed. All state coordinators believed their state U&CF program would decline if federal funding was eliminated. Nearly one-third believed their state program would end and nearly half believed a severe reduction in the state program would occur if federal funding was eliminated. Only 42% of state U&CF programs had enabling legislation that authorized financial and/or technical assistance. Other entities that provide U&CF assistance were identified with the Cooperative Extension Service most frequently cited.

Participatory Indicators of Success of Community Forestry Programs in Uganda

In Uganda, a large diversity of community initiated forest management systems have evolved recently in response to severe degradation of forests and grazing land and biomass shortages. Forestry professional, forest user group and farmers were organized in June 2004 to develop commonly agreed indicators of the performance of Community Forestry Program in Uganda. Indicators, such as access to fuel wood, incidence of forest fire and amount of community funds raised through the sale offorest products are commonly agreed at local level. Women participation in forestry related meetings and taste of drinking water in the watershed area are also important. Equitable benefit sharing by the community forest users serves as an indicator of better access to forest products. Socio-economic changes such as women participation in forest related decision-making, income generated from community forests, and equity of benefits from community forests also, reflect the program success.

Forest Structure Under Different Management Regimes in the Western Lowlands of Nepal

ABSTRACT For landscape level conservation and rural sustenance, forests outside of protected areas are becoming increasingly important. Since most outside forests in the lowlands of Nepal are under government control and utilized as open access resources, their feasibility to achieve these objectives is questionable. We compared forests inside (with three decades of strict protection) and outside of protected areas (under government control and proposed as community forests) to assess the ecological sustainability of outside forests and to provide baseline data on structure of outside forests so that effectiveness of community forestry (after implementation) can be evaluated in the future. Our results indicate that outside forests were in a degraded condition with low tree, sapling and seedling densities and lower species diversity. Trees in lower dbh (diameter at breast height) classes were absent in these forests. Although the canopy layer was not significantly different, the ordination of plots and species showed that species composition of understory and the ground layer were different than protected forests. The present condition of outside forests is not only ecologically unsustainable but also cannot fulfill the demands for forest products of local people. The inefficiency of government to monitor against exploitation has been responsible for present conditions. We recommend that community forestry programs, which are successful in improving conditions of degraded forests in the mountains of Nepal, should be widely implemented in lowland areas (Terai) and proposed community forests should be handed over to local communities as soon as it is practicable.