Rights and Wellbeing: An Analytical Approach to Global Case Comparison of Community Forestry

Abstract

<p>Many countries have adopted policies supported community forestry. Trends towards community empowerment, livelihood improvement and decentralized decision-making are being done by providing more rights to forest dependent people. However, empirical data to support clear understanding on the correlation between resource rights and wellbeing or poverty are missing. The paper provides an analytical approach to figuring out forest resource rights and their connections to wellbeing. Twenty seven cases of community forestry in Asia, Africa and Latin America were selected, clustered and analyzed using non-linear principle component analysis. We found there was correlation between rights of forest resources and wellbeing although was not very strong. There was also connection between income and equity as well as between equity and sustainability of forest. This implies that giving more rights to local people is not enough for improving wellbeing without facilitating for better institution and governance.</p

An Uneven Playing Field: Regulatory Barriers to Communities Making a Living from the Timber from Their Forests–Examples from Cambodia, Nepal and Vietnam

“…These include pressures resulting from the development of forest certification, timber legality verification schemes and their challenging procedures (e.g., [18,[39][40][41]). Regulations that increase costs also affect local private sector sourcing from communities, eventually resulting in lower prices for local people [42,43].…”

Participatory assessment and mapping of ecosystem services in a data-poor region: Case study of community-managed forests in central Nepal

“…In recent years, community forestry (CF) has become a globally popular approach to forest management (Agrawal and Chhatre, 2006;Purnomo et al, 2012). CF has been considered a successful national strategy to improve rural livelihood and environmental protection in Nepal, where local communities are protecting and managing forest resources to increase forest cover and conditions (Acharya, 2004;Khadka et al, 2012;Måren et al, 2013;MFSC, 2013;Niraula et al, 2013;WB, 2001) to provide forest products such as firewood, timber, fodder, leaf litter (Birch et al, 2014, Gautam et al, 2004Pokharel, 2012) and other ecosystem services (ES).…”

Forest and land fires, toxic haze and local politics in Indonesia

“…Policy change and the politics of "who gets what, when, and how" are closely related (Lasswell 1958). Many studies on the political economy of natural resources management in Indonesia highlight the importance of good governance of land and forests to improve forest sustainability and the livelihoods of people (Barr et al 2009, Purnomo et al 2012b). The political economy and good governance approaches are often used in national development transformation based on natural resources (Barma et al 2012).…”