How can different interest groups engage together in learning processes that enable them to better manage community forests? In this volume, practitioners from eight countries document their experience with the aim of identifying how to characterize social learning, as well as how to improve upon current practice. Analysis of current approaches to facilitation and the circumstances or platforms of learning indicate the need for more attention to the different avenues and styles of learning and the potential benefits of using multiple avenues.

The Culture and Conservation Research Program in Kayan Mentarang National Park, East Kalimantan, constitutes a unique interdisciplinary engagement in central Borneo that lasted for six years (1991-97). Based on original ethnographic, ecological, and historical data, this volume comprehensively describes the people and the environment of this region and makes a rare contribution to the understanding of past and present interactions between people and forests in central Borneo. Kayan Mentarang has thus become one of the ethnographically best known protected areas in Southeast Asia.

This brief article begins with a summary of CIFOR's work on criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management (C&I). It then discusses how CIFOR programs combined to form the program called Local People, Devolution and Adaptive Collaborative Management of Forests". It briefly describes the research approach and the research design underway in 9 countries.

The brief describes development planning consultations, locally known as musrenbang, conducted in stages through different levels of governance: village, sub-district and district. The brief then documents lessons from experience catalyzing collective action among local community goups (in particular women’s groups) to engage in this development process and to help articulate the women’s aspirations in such a way that they could be heard by district decision makers.

This manual gathers information on the ecology and silviculture of Swietenia macrophylla King, with a focus on Indonesia. It also includes growth and yield data from published sources, collected from smallholders’ farms in the research sites in South Kalimantan province, and collected previously by the Forestry Research and Development Agency of Indonesia. This manual is one of five manuals that guide smallholder tree planting of five selected tree species in Indonesia.

This manual gathers information on the ecology and silviculture of Swietenia macrophylla King, with a focus on Indonesia. It also includes growth and yield data from published sources, collected from smallholders’ farms in the research sites in South Kalimantan province, and collected previously by the Forestry Research and Development Agency of Indonesia. This manual is one of five manuals that guide smallholder tree planting of five selected tree species in Indonesia.

This occasional paper is the result of research carried out from 2006 to 2008 on the effects of new tenure rights for forest-based communities in Latin America on access to forest resources and benefits. Focused on seven different regions in four countries, the paper examines changes in statutory rights, the implementation of those rights in practice, and the extent to which they have led to tangible new benefits from forests, particularly to new sources of income.

This is the report of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) sixth test of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. The test took place in October and November 1996 in and around Kribi, Cameroon. Unlike previous criteria and indicators (C&I) tests, the Kribi test placed emphasis on testing methods for developing the C&I. Eighteen experts in forestry, ecology and social science from Cameroon and other countries were involved in testing C&I developed by ATO, a Dutch working group, and a set collated from several sources.

This report documents the conduct of the first field tests of criteria and indicators (C&I) at the forest management unit level. Interdisciplinary and international teams of five persons conducted tests of five sets of C&I in four countries (Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, and Cote d’Ivoire). This report provides a description of the methods used, a thorough analysis of the findings, a combined generic template of C&I dealing with production forestry, policy, social and ecological issues, based on the groups’ results.