Dalit stakes in environment are high due to their dependence on natural resources for livelihoods. Though climatic uncertainties have implications on many sectors, rural livelihoods are most affected by changes in climatic patterns. Dalits, who are highly dependent on earnings from agricultural labour and, livestock rearing dependent on forests and other common lands have fewer resources and options to combat the damages to the resourcebase because of climate change.

The study assessed the biodiversity impact of the project supported by UNDP and the Government of Madhya Pradesh to support local communities in rehabilitating degraded forest, generating sustainable livelihoods and protecting the areas rich ecosystem. The project was supported by the Global Environment Facility.

In the Ethiopian highlands, church forests have a substantial contribution to landscape restoration, and conservation of endangered indigenous tree species and biodiversity. However, the environmental and economic benefits of church forests are declining due to a combination of economic, environmental, and cultural factors. This study was conducted in Dera district, Ethiopia, to assess the perception of local communities on church forests and investigate the willingness of local communities to pay to manage and protect church forests.

Tropentag, September 18-21, 2016, Vienna, Austria

“Solidarity in a competing world —

fair use of resources”

Prosperity Prospects in Contested Forest Areas: Evidence from

Community Forestry Development in Guatemala and Nicaragua

Dietmar Stoian

1

, Aldo Rodas

2

, Jessenia Arguello

3

1

Bioversity International, Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems Initiative, France

2

Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Guatemala, Natural Resources and Agrotourism,

3

Whilst community forestry programmes have combined sustainable forestry with community empowerment and poverty alleviation since the late 1970s, the role of intermediary organisations in shaping the technical and political capacities of forest user groups has rarely been systematically studied. The long-term durability of community forestry groups has been linked with the congruence between local and national determinations of tenure rights, and the involvement of local communities in determining the ‘rules' that govern the management of the forests.

Community forestry (CF) was initiated in the 1970s as a way to empower communities, alleviate poverty and manage forests. Intermediary organisations are considered to have played a critical role in the sustainability and equitability of community forest management. This study analyses a second-tier institution, ACOFOP [Asociación de Comunidades Forestales de Petén], founded in the mid-1990s by local people in the Maya Biosphere Reserve [MBR] of Guatemala. ACOFOP has been