India is vast, diverse and complex, in its environments and in environment-society relations. These relationships, and government policies which influence or control them, are the subject of very significant reforms currently occurring in India. At the most fundamental level, this report asks "Who is to protect, manage and regenerate India’s forests, where and for what, and what resources or support does each agent need to fulfil the mandate efficiently and equitably?" The conventional forestry systems have been under scrutiny.

Natural forests in the humid tropics differ from temperate and plantation forests in several ways: there may be many tree species; many of these may occur infrequently; there may be a large range of tree sizes and shapes present; tree ages may be unknown and indeterminate; and despite the luxuriant appearance some rainforests, growth rates may be relatively low. This has many implications for timber harvesting and yield estimation and means that most of the estimation techniques devised for even-aged single-species forests cannot be used.

Le Projet « Aménagement et exploitation des forêts pour le ravitaillement de la ville de Ouagadougou en bois de feu » (TCP/FAO/BKF/85/011) a donné naissance au projet « Aménagement des forêts naturelles pour la sauvegarde de l’environnement et la production de bois » (PNUD/FAO/BKF/89/011).

This digital story was produced to communicate work done by the Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC), specifically activities undertaken by the team working on 'Technologies, Institutions and Policies'. The NBDC aimed to improve the livelihoods of farmers in the Ethiopian highlands through land and water management and was funded by the Challenge Program for Water and Food. For more information see: http://nilebdc.org

Estimates of the area of swidden fallow secondary forest in Indonesia are inaccurate, partly because swidden agricultural practices giving rise to the secondary forest are heterogeneous. Throughout Indonesia, swidden agriculture is evolving into more intensive land use. A mixed secondary forest tree crop management appears to be the first stage towards a tree crop based production in Sumatra and Kalimantan. This changes the value of the forest/tree component of swidden agriculture, or the systems it evolves into.

The most prominent international responses to climate change focus on mitigation (reducing the accumulation of greenhouse gases) rather than adaptation (reducing the vulnerability of society and ecosystems). However, with climate change now inevitable, adaptation is gaining importance in the policy arena, and is an integral part of ongoing negotiations towards an international framework.

Increasing forest financing requires better communication and understanding between the forestry and finance sectors. This can take the form of joint development of financing strategies, instruments and business cases. Limited forest financing is often less about money availability than about poor access.