In 2002, mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) was listed on Appendix II of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). This requires that all producing countries define and implement sustainable production systems for mahogany, the most commercially important neotropical timber, which is still harvested from natural forests. The only serious efforts to produce mahogany sustainably from managed natural forests are those of communities in Quintana Roo, Mexico, which control 800,000 of natural production forests.

This proceedings contains a summary of national seminars on social forestry in Indonesia. It covers history of social forestry in Indonesia, principles of social forestry, and the different types of social forestry initiatives in Indonesia. There are similar problems faced in forestry sector such as forest boundaries, land tenure. Other problems in social forestry are: a) national forest policy (2) Decentralisation and space for social forestry; (3) Multistakeholder arrangements in social forestry; and (4) strengthening institutions and collective learning processes.

Big-leaf mahogany was studied on nine mixed-species stands that became established naturally between 2 and 75 years ago after catastrophic disturbances (hurricane blowdown, fire, or bulldozer clearing). More than 50% of adult big-leaf mahogany trees had survived a severe hurricane, leaving 2.8 seed trees ha-1. After fire, 29% to 100% of adult Mahogany trees survived, leaving an average of 1.4 seed trees ha 1. Thirty or more years later, postdisturbance mahogany trees were found at densities of 18 ha-1 after fire, as compared to 6 ha-1 after a hurricane.

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.

Berau district has been one of East Kalimantan’s largest sources of timber since the mid-1980s. Until the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, most of the district’s formal timber production was conducted by large-scale HPH concession holders, and the vast majority of the fiscal revenues generated flowed to the national government. Over the last several years, considerable volumes of logs have also been harvested illegally both by timber concessionaires and by small-scale manual loggers.

An important means of expanding plantation production and benefiting small-scale producers is through corporate smallholder partnerships that establish agreements for industries to purchase wood produced by other parties, including but not limited to smallholders. The workshop, and subsequent synthesis described in this document, attempted to bring together the perspectives of the private sector, government, non-governmental organizations and research institutions who are actively working on this important topic.

The paper describes underlying causes of conflicts between local people in Bulungan Research Forest (BRF), Indonesia with coal-mining and logging companies. Results show that conflict between local people and mining companies was triggered by the fact that mining operation caused water and air pollution and soil degradation. Another cause for such a conflict was the compensatory facilities (e.g. clean water, electricity, compensation fee, etc.) provided by the companies to local people were often delayed or unsatisfactory.

Poverty, property rights and distributional implications of community-based resource management have become major topics of discussion and debate in recent years. This study tries to examine the contribution of community forestry to household-level income with particular emphasis on group heterogeneity and equity in benefit distribution. The assessment of household level benefits suggests that poorer households are currently benefiting less in absolute terms from community forestry than less poor households.

This document presents the results of an evaluation of an IFAD project aimed at preventing land degradation in Nepal. The project is based on leasehold forestry, an innovative approach introduced by IFAD in the early 1990s. It works by providing forty-year leases to groups of households and giving them user rights over plots of degraded forest land.

Scenario methods can be used to anticipate the future and expand the creativity of people thinking about complex forest management situations. This manual describes the use of scenarios with multiple stakeholders, with examples drawn from community-based forest management. Four classes of scenario methods are described: visions, projections, pathways and alternative scenarios. Examples of rapid participatory techniques relevant to scenario methods are also summarized.