Community
forest management: A new and inspiring FoEI publication
Millions
of people throughout the world live in rural areas and to a greater
or lesser extent depend on forest ecosystems for their livelihoods.
However, forest degradation and deforestation are occurring at
alarming rates, thus endangering their lives.
Whether for forest-dependent
indigenous peoples and rural peasant communities or for urban
communities reliant on environmental services provided by forests,
these play a vital role in everyday life. Unfair distribution
processes, consumerism and the lack of good governance lie at
the centre of unsustainable resource management causing environmental
problems and the continual impoverishment of local populations.
This
new publication produced by the Forest and Biodiversity Programme
of Friends of the Earth International, provides renewed impetus
and documentation illustrating how innovative solutions based
on the knowledge of local communities are contributing to the
improvement of their life conditions while also protecting and
maintaining forest ecosystems.
“Community-based
forest governance refers to the regulations and practices used
by many communities for the conservation and sustainable use of
the forests with which they coexist. This type of governance is
collective-communal, and by tradition identifies with forest protection,
opposing the industrial and commercial use of forest resources”.
The
publication provides community experiences from a broad array
of countries, detailing successes and challenges in local peoples’
efforts to control, use and protect their forests. These experiences
include cases in India, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia,
France, Greece, Chile, Bolivia, Amazonia, Costa Rica, El Salvador
and Haiti. The cases offer a good basis for illustrating and motivating
reflection on community forest management with the aim of encouraging
the sustainable use of forests.
In
addition to local community experiences, the publication includes
analysis for critical reflection and discussion on a large number
of threats and opportunities, with issues ranging from the role
of governments and international financial institutions to food
sovereignty, consumerism, climate change, peoples health, markets
for local products and land tenure. The book shows how those issues
affect local peoples, linking them with the broader issue of social
and environmental justice.
Used
as a basis for collective reflection over local level resource
control, through processes of participatory decision making and
egalitarian benefit sharing, this inspiring publication is a valuable
tool to be used by communities wanting to exercise greater control
over their lives and resources, for communities struggling to
improve their lives, to restore degraded ecosystems, as well as
for political lobbying against socially and environmentally destructive
policies.
By:
Antonis Diamantidis, email:
antonis@wrm.org.uy
The
book is available in electronic format in Spanish at
http://www.coecoceiba.org/images/pub91.pdf, and will soon
be available in English and French. For further information please
contact Javier Baltodano, from Friends of the Earth at:
licania@racsa.co.cr
