Rehabilitation and Restoration Of Degraded Forests (PDF) - IUCN

Box 5. Forest dependence and decision-making
Chapter 4: Why undertake forest landscape restoration?
In many developing countries large populations of rural people
live near forests and depend on them for subsistence and, sometimes,
for commercial purposes. Many of these communities have
had a close and long-standing association with the forests; until
relatively recently, resource management in more remote regions
was left largely in their hands. Often there were local institutional
arrangements that defined access and use rights to the forest.
Forests were often nationalised by colonial and post-colonial
governments. This legally disenfranchised local communities,
although in many cases they retained usufruct rights extra-legally.
As state control spread, local communities came into closer
contact with government officials. Tensions increased, particularly
where upland land-use practices did not conform to those of
lowland (mainly ethnic majority) farmers. Often, government
officials didn’t appreciate the importance of forests to local
communities in terms of food security, income, nutrition,
employment, energy sources and overall well-being. The largescale
exploitation of commercial timber from the forests during
the past few decades brought few benefits to upland communities,
who became even more removed from mainstream development.
The current emphasis on rehabilitation of degraded forests
provides opportunities to build new relationships between
governments and local communities, based on collaboration
rather than confrontation. This will require significant changes in
attitudes and working relationships, as well as a continuing
evolution of policy. Progress is likely to be slow, partly because of
entrenched attitudes in the bureaucracy. Nonetheless, there seems
to be an inevitability about the general direction of policy, with
governments throughout much of the world devolving more
rights and responsibilities to various members of civil society.
Forest landscape restoration also seeks to foster a more participatory
form of forest management. One of the lessons of development and of
general land-use planning and management during recent decades is
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