"Twenty years ago when RECOFTC was born, community forestry was just emerging onto the global scene as a viable policy option to restore degraded forests and to provide livelihood support for local communities living adjacent to forests. These two objectives remain today, but to them has been added a plethora of other objectives including poverty alleviation, environmental services, equity and governance to name just a few. In short, community forestry, along with other forms of forestry, has become more complex."

Summary

Community forestry has great potential to improve the welfare of the estimated 450 million impoverished people living in and around forests in Asia. But the extent to which this potential is realized depends strongly upon whether communities are able to secure the benefits that community managed forests generate, and whether these actually reach the poorest at the community level. The real benefits obtained in return for the time and energy expended by communities in forest management helps to gain their long-term commitment to sustainable forest management.

To celebrate RECOFTC's 20th anniversary, this collection of articles shares the stories of those who have worked to further RECOFTC's mission over the past twenty years.

1. Tribute to the founder

2. Birth of a movement: The later years

3. Why communities manage forests

4. Eyewitness to the first 10 years

5. The second decade: In the field

6. The RECOFTC checklist

7. Alumni stories

8. An overview of lessons learned

9. Tributes from longstandi

Compreender a questão agrária sob o modo capitalista de produção sempre foi tarefa difícil e complicada. Não porque muitos autores não a tenham praticamente esgotada, mas porque os estudos mais trazem discordâncias do que convergência. Por isso, esta temática cria atritos entre os conservadores e os progressistas, entre os socialistas e os comunistas, e entre todos eles e os anarquistas. Não há possibilidade nenhuma de consenso ou mesmo de aproximações. Sempre haverá pressupostos que se interporão abrindo espaço para a polêmica e discussões.

Increasingly, social capital, defined as shared norms, trust, and the horizontal and vertical social networks that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutually beneficial collective action, is seen as an important asset upon which people rely to manage natural resources and resolve conflicts. This paper uses empirical data from households and community surveys and case studies, to examine the role, strengths, and limits of social capital in managing conflicts over the use and management of natural resources.

This book captures the main lessons and issues emerging from national and regional discussions on 'benefit sharing.' It also presents one case study from each country, selected to highlight issues in different sectors. As we struggle to find ways to strengthen the poverty reduction potential of CBNRM, we hope that this book offers some practical areas to target for future action. 

A collection of practical experiences and lessons on Payments for Environmental Services (PES)

This literature study, conducted under a collaborative framework between NAFRI and RECOFTC, was developed to analyze the status of community contribution to forest resource management in Lao PDR and the modes and extent that communities are or have been involved in the different applied models. The report aims to give an overview of community based forest initiatives up to now, analyze lessons, challenges and opportunities and give guidance for future work.

"The forest management strategy of Nepal is based on people’s participation, which is known as community forestry. This approach was formally introduced in 1978 to encourage active participation of local people in forest management activities as a means to improve their livelihoods. Under the community forestry structure, local people make decisions regarding forest management, utilization and distribution of benefits from a forest; they are organized as a Community Forest User Group.

This paper analyzes how women’s participation affects institutional outcomes related to the decentralized governance of community forests in Madhya Pradesh, India. The analysis is based on data from a representative sample of 641 cases of joint forest management, India’s flagship program to involve communities in forest governance. We focus on two outcomes relevant for local livelihoods: control of illicit grazing and control of illicit felling in the forest.

From the foreword: "A major goal of CFI's mission in Cambodia is to support the involvement of civil society in the management of forests. Rural communities have a special role to play as forest stewards, both due to their logistical proximity to natural forests, but also because of their dependency upon these resources for shelter, water, fuel and food.