UN FAO, 2010 - Two Sides

124
Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010
the state. Communities and indigenous people also owned a significant share of private
forests (and total forest area) in Central America as a whole (44 percent) because of the
situation in a few countries such as Guatemala and Honduras. 24
Publicly owned forests may be managed by the state, communities, individuals
or the private sector. Figure 7.3 shows who was responsible for management of
public forests at the global and subregional levels. This information was reported by
152 countries (accounting for 92 percent of total forest area) for 2005 and 130 countries
(80 percent of total forest area) reported the entire time series. These figures therefore
give a fairly good, albeit partial, picture of who manages public forests across the world.
At the global level, the state retains management responsibilities in about 80 percent
of public forests, followed by private corporations and institutions (10 percent),
and communities (7 percent). Private corporations and institutions were particularly
important in a few regions and subregions, such as Oceania, South and Southeast Asia
and Western and Central Africa, because of their large influence in countries such as
Australia, Indonesia and those of the Congo Basin. In these regions and subregions,
private companies were responsible for forest management in 58, 30 and 14 percent of
public forests respectively.
In South America, private corporations and institutions did not manage much
public forest, although this is expected to increase in the future as a result of the forest
concession law introduced in 2006 in Brazil. However, community management of
public forests was very common in South America (e.g. in Brazil) and in South and
Southeast Asia (e.g. in India and the Philippines).
Trends
At the global level, the area of forest under public ownership decreased by 141 million
hectares, or about 0.3 percent annually between 1990 and 2005, while the area of forest
under private ownership increased by 113 million hectares or almost 1.5 percent per
FIGURe 7.3
management of public forests by subregion, 2005
eastern and Southern Africa
Northern Africa
Western and Central Africa
east Asia
South and Southeast Asia
Western and Central Asia
europe excl. Russian Federation
europe
Caribbean
Central America
North America
oceania
South America
World
0
20
40
(%)
60
80
100
Public administration
Individuals
Private corporations and institutions
Communities
other
24
It should also be noted that 70 percent of forests in Mexico are owned by ‘ejidos’ (local communities),
but this is not shown here because these were classified as ‘other forms of ownership’.