Community Forestry

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Community Forestry
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Outline

• What is community forestry?
• Different forestry models
• Impetus for community forestry
• Benefits of community forestry
• Risks
• Attributes of successful community forestry
• Lessons learned (Ford Foundation)
• Community forestry in the U.S.
• Evaluating the viability of community forestry in
  a real-world situation

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What is community forestry?

• Three shared attributes
• 1. Residents have access to land and its
  resources
• 2. Residents participate in decisions
  concerning the forest
• 3. Community participates in protecting and
  restoring the forest
• Often community forestry begins when there
  is a serious forest degradation problem

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Different forestry models

• Public ownership?municipal,state,federal
• Private?industrial,non-industrial private forest
• Community?shared access and management

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Impetus for community forestry

• Loss of forest access by local people
• Unequal distribution of cost/benefits of forest
• Inability of locals to influence forest
  management
• Environmental degradation
• Loss of culture/traditional use/social identity

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Benefits of community forestry

• Community forestry is small scale, benign
  management
• Community forestry leads to more intensive
  practice
• Better connection between cost and benefits
• Greater public involvement
• Diversify economic basis of community

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Risks

• Lack of ecological/management expertise
• Lack of global market understanding
• Often requires outside technical assistance
• Inability to produce efficiently
• Creates favoritism toward some ethnic groups
• Unequal distribution local vs. larger national
  interest
• Requires strong functioning social organization

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Attributes of successful community forestry

• Clearly defined boundaries
• Congruence in benefit/cost
• Collective choice arrangements
• Monitoring
• Graduated sanctions
• Conflict resolution mechanism
• Local right to organize
• Nested enterprise

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Lesson learned (Ford Foundation)

• Local people can be an asset to conservation
• Local community organization critical
• NGO, government can play a role
• Policy important, must be flexible
• Government agencies must be able to change
• Collaboration with NGOs/governments provides
  access to technical/organizational skills
• External donors can be critical synergists

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Community forestry in the U.S.

• Ideas/principles come from developing world
• Collaborative stewardship
• Citizens participate in design, implementation
  and monitoring
• Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership
• Consider triad of ecosystem sustainability
• Ecology
• Economics
• Social well-being

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Community forestry in the U.S.(continued)

• Greater collaboration/trust between community and
  government
• Reduces litigation
• Government voluntarily shares its right of land
  tenure

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Evaluating the viability of community forestry in
a real-world situation

• 1. Evaluating the readiness of a community to
  pursue community forestry
• Existing networks of association
• Clear understanding of the issues
• Strong local leadership/participatory culture
• Capacity to influence the current landholder
• Availability of outside technical assistance
• Precipitating event

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Evaluating the viability of community forestry in
a real-world situation

• 2. Ability to build local capacity
• Financial management capacity
• Workforce management capacity
• Technical expertise
• Community involvement experience

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Evaluating the viability of community forestry in
a real-world situation

• 3. Availability of outside support
• Administrative/technical capacity
• Community process/organizing
• Political support

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Evaluating the viability of community forestry in
a real-world situation

• 4. Market and economic capacity
• Type and availability of markets
• Production capacity and efficiency
• Congruency of economic opportunity and cultural
  context