Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

Box 1.9
Community Forestry Models around the World
Many types of community forestry have been implemented
in different parts of the world. In Latin America,
there have been three main types:
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Communities with clear rights given by their
national governments to participate in commercial
timber harvesting, such as in Bolivia, Guatemala,
Honduras, and Mexico.
Communities that manage extractive reserves, such
as in Brazil, where the government gives them clear
rights over the land and forests, while limiting the
amount of forest to be cleared for agriculture and
prohibiting commercial logging. Communities earn
money by selling nontimber forest products.
Countries where the territorial rights of Indigenous
Peoples over the areas that they have traditionally
managed have been recognized.
In China, villagers are being given more control
over heavily degraded lands if they agree with local
forestry officials on how to rehabilitate the forests
while also using them for their own subsistence. In
India and Nepal, limited rights to what are still officially
considered public lands have been devolved to
local communities to manage and benefit from forests.
Revenues from commercial forestry activities are
shared with the government.
In Southeast Asia and the Pacific, partnerships are
developed between communities and logging companies
to ensure that the communities share in the benefits
and that logging companies do not damage the
resources the communities would like to protect.
Several models exist in Africa:
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Community forest programs that protect wildlife for
tourism and sport hunting in return for a share of the
fees paid by the tourists and hunters. Examples of this
model can be found in Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Projects focused on increasing villagers’ incomes
through sale of their fuelwood and charcoal, as in
Mali and Niger.
Programs designed to recognize the rights of communities
over their forests, as in Tanzania and
Mozambique.
Programs designed to allow communities to sell timber
commercially, if supported by a logging company
or donor project. In Cameroon, this has greatly
limited the number of communities involved.
Source: Kaimowitz 2005.
OPERATIONAL ASPECTS
The role of natural resources in economic growth
and good governance. Natural resources play a
fundamental role in the economic growth of poor countries
and poor populations and in the development of
democracies and good governance. Some specific steps for
consideration include the following:
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Understand the different perspectives that government,
communities, private operators, and other stakeholders
have of devolution and its mode of implementation. A
shared framework, more accountable to local livelihood
needs and peoples’ rights to self-determination, is
required. Redefining issues of wider “public interest”
forms part of this process, as does a careful analysis of the
motivations and the negative incentives.
Consider and support, if appropriate, the shift of priorities
in programs, budgets, and plans toward greater
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investment and integration of natural resources across
the board in agricultural and poverty reduction programs,
in national and donor budgets, in decentralization
programs, and in other initiatives, at the policy,
national planning, and forestry project levels.
Develop pathways for more transparent information and
communication that are locally accepted and that are
adaptable for community through national political and
donor levels.
Create a baseline of biophysical and socioeconomic factors.
There are several methodologies, including those
detailed in the Poverty-Forest Linkages Toolkit (see note
1.1, Mainstreaming the Role of Forests in Poverty Alleviation:
Measuring Poverty-Forest Linkages) and through
CIFOR’s Poverty Environment Network (http://www
.cifor.cgiar.org/pen/). In addition, the International Forest
Resources and Institutions (IFRI) Research Program
describes a comprehensive methodology for measuring
NOTE 1.2: COMMUNITY-BASED FOREST MANAGEMENT 31