This infobrief provides key points that will benefit disadvantaged groups in multistakeholder negotiations. Negotiations that include all the groups or stakeholders concerned should increase democratic decision-making and compromise. Experience has shown that the benefits that disandvantaged groups receive from multistakeholder negotiations depend on how the negotiations are done. This infobrief describes some of the pitfalls of multistakeholder negotiations and proposes ways for disadvantaged groups to avoid them.

This paper first provides a brief overview of what are and what represent forest ecosystem services. Then it considers the issues of price and valuation, and shows that valuation itself is not a solution but merely a tool. Considering then the reasons of the overall degradation of forest ecosystem services it shows that the main reasons tend to be fundamental: deforestation most often happens because it pays for local people - not so much because the institutionally created arrangements are perverse.

This book focuses primarily on changes that have taken place in the Malinau area in East Kalimantan in recent years. The Punan Malinau, who inhabit the area, are former nomads who subsist on a wide range of forest-oriented activities, including swidden agriculture, hunting and the collection of and trade in forest products. During the past ten years, the arrival of a growing number of powerful outsiders, including NGO's, timber and mining companies, has contributed to increasing competition for land and for various new sources of income.