Redefining Forestry for Effective Livelihoods


Book Description

Forests play a very important part in the rural economy. The rural population largely depends on forests for their livelihoods. Degradation and deforestation of forests have a negative impact on the rural people. They increase suffering and poverty. At the same time, they pose a serious, global environmental threat. It is necessary that the livelihood option of rural population is secured while forest resources augmented. This can be done through participatory management. Redefining Forestry for Effective Livelihoods brings out key issues relevant to forest and livelihood, with a special focus on non-timber forest produce. It gives a detailed analysis about how forests play an important role in maintaining earth’s ecosystem and, thus, the vital balance of flora and fauna. The book also discusses the contribution of forests to the national economy. It also focuses on emerging research issues arising out of various policies and their impact on the forest-dependent poor. The book provides the essential findings, arguments, linkage of forestry sector with other development scenario and the possible way out for the future. This comprehensive book is a useful reference for researchers, policymakers, and development practitioners working in the area of forest and livelihood.




Community Forestry in Nepal


Book Description

Community forestry focuses on the link between forest resources and livelihoods and contributes to forest conservation and reforestation. It is widespread in Nepal, with a very high proportion of the rural population involved, and is widely recognized as one of the most successful examples of community forestry in Asia. Through a combination of literature reviews and original research, this volume explores key experiences and outcomes of community forestry in Nepal over the last four decades as a model for improving forest management and supporting local livelihoods. The book takes a critical approach, recognizing successes, especially in forest conservation and restoration, along with mixed outcomes in terms of poverty reduction and benefits to forest users. It recognizes the way that community forestry has continued to evolve to meet new challenges, including the global challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation, as well as national demographic and social changes due to large-scale labour migration and the growing remittance economy. In addition to examining the changes and responses, the book explores ways that community forestry in Nepal might move forward. Lessons from Nepal have relevance to community forestry and community-based approaches to natural resource management around the world that are also experiencing global pressures and opportunities.




Policy That Works for Forests and People


Book Description

Since its original publication by the International Institute for Environment and Development in 1999, Policy That Works for Forests and People has been recognised as the most authoritative study to date of policy processes that affect forests and people. Providing a thorough analysis of the issues, options and factors that determine different outcomes and bolstered by a major annex containing tools and tactics, the book offers clear and practical advice on how to formulate, manage and implement policies appropriate to different contexts. These are policies that result in real improvements in the governance, use and economic benefits that can flow from forests to those who depend upon them. This book is essential reading for policy-makers, forestry practitioners and academics and students in all areas of forest policy, management and governance.




Forty years of community-based forestry


Book Description

Since the 1970s and 1980s, community-based forestry has grown in popularity, based on the concept that local communities, when granted suffi­cient property rights over local forest commons, can organize autonomously and develop local institutions to regulate the use of natural resources and manage them sustainably. Over time, various forms of community-based forestry have evolved in different countries, but all have at their heart the notion of some level of participation by smallholders and community groups in planning and implementation. This publication is FAO’s fi­rst comprehensive look at the impact of community-based forestry since previous reviews in 1991 and 2001. It considers both collaborative regimes (forestry practised on land with formal communal tenure requiring collective action) and smallholder forestry (on land that is generally privately owned). The publication examines the extent of community-based forestry globally and regionally and assesses its effectiveness in delivering on key biophysical and socioeconomic outcomes, i.e. moving towards sustainable forest management and improving local livelihoods. The report is targeted at policy-makers, practitioners, researchers, communities and civil society.




Sustainable Forestry


Book Description

In the context of forest sustainability, this book presents the issues related to both global climate change and conservation of biodiversity. It highlights four methodologies and shows how they contribute in overcoming the ecological challenges facing our world. The practical experience presented can be applied to the implementation of successful sustainable forestry policies.




Making Place through Ritual


Book Description

Indian indigenous societies are especially known for their elaborate rituals, which offer an excellent chance for studying religion as practice. However, few detailed ethnographic works exist on the ritual practices of these societies. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Jharkhand, India this book offers insights into contemporary, previously not described rituals of the Santal, one of the largest indigenous societies of Central India. Its focus lies on culturally specific notions of place as articulated and created during these rituals. In three chapters the book discusses how the Santal "make place" on different local, regional and global levels through their rituals: They reaffirm their ancestral roots in their land during large sacrificial rituals. They offer sacrifices to the dangerous deities of the forest in exchange for rain. And they claim their region to be a "Santal region" through large festivals celebrated in sacred groves, which they link to national and global discourses of indigeneity and environmentalism. Through an analysis of the rituals of a specific society, this book addresses broader issues. It presents an example of how to study religion as a practical activity. It portrays culture-specific perceptions of the environment. And last, the book underlines the potential that lies in choosing place as a lens to study social phenomena in context.




Creating a Forestry for the 21st Century


Book Description

Over the past decade, a sea change has occurred in the field of forestry. A vastly increased understanding of how ecological systems function has transformed the science from one focused on simplifying systems, producing wood, and managing at the stand-level to one concerned with understanding and managing complexity, providing a wide range of ecological goods and services, and managing across broad landscapes.Creating a Forestry for the 21st Century is an authoritative and multidisciplinary examination of the current state of forestry and its relation to the emergent field of ecosystem management. Drawing upon the expertise of top professionals in the field, it provides an up-to-date synthesis of principles of ecosystem management and their implications for forest policy. Leading scientists, including Malcolm Hunter, Jr., Bruce G. Marcot, James K. Agee, Thomas R. Crow, Robert J. Naiman, John C. Gordon, R.W. Behan, Steven L. Yaffee, and many others examine topics that are central to the future of forestry: new understandings of ecological processes and principles, from stand structure and function to disturbance processes and the movement of organisms across landscapes challenges to long-held assumptions: the rationale for clearcutting, the wisdom of short rotations, the exclusion of fire traditional tools in light of expanded goals for forest landscapes managing at larger spatial scales, including practical information and ideas for managing large landscapes over long time periods the economic, organizational, and political issues that are critical to implementing successful ecosystem management and developing institutions to transform knowledge into action Featuring a 16-page center section with color photographs that illustrate some of the best on-the-ground examples of ecosystem management from around the world, Creating a Forestry for the 21st Century is the definitive text on managing ecosystems. It provides a compelling case for thinking creatively beyond the bounds of traditional forest resource management, and will be essential reading for students; scientists working in state, federal, and private research institutions; public and private forest managers; staff members of environmental/conservation organizations; and policymakers.




Forest Tenure Reform in Asia and Africa


Book Description

Forest tenure reforms are occurring in many developing countries around the world. These reforms typically include devolution of forest lands to local people and communities, which has attracted a great deal of attention and interest. While the nature and level of devolution vary by country, all have potentially important implications for resource allocation, local ecosystem services, livelihoods and climate change. This book helps students, researchers and professionals to understand the importance and implications of these reforms for local environmental quality, climate change, and the livelihoods of villagers, who are often poor. It is shown that local forest management can often be more successful than top-down management of common pool forest resources. The relationship of local forest tenure reform to the important climate change initiative REDD+ is also considered. The work includes a number of generic chapters and also detailed case studies from China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda. Using specific examples and a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, including quantitative and qualitative analytical methods, the book provides an authoritative and critical picture of local forest reforms in light of the key challenges humanity faces today.




Towards Forest Sustainability


Book Description

Towards Forest Sustainability is a collection of practical essays by some of the world’s leading forest ecologists and managers from the United States of America, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand. The authors describe the changes that have taken place in forest management – highlighting what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons that have been learned. This unique set of essays documents the drivers of the change in the logging industry and the resulting outcomes. It provides real-world insights from an international perspective into government policy, industry concerns, and conservation and biodiversity issues.




Better Forestry, Less Poverty


Book Description

This guide suggests ways to design and implement forest-based interventions that have the greatest potential to reduce poverty. Areas for action include timber production in both natural and planted forests, non-wood forest products, woodfuel, bushmeat, agroforestry and payment for environmental services. For each topic, the guide outlines key issues, summarizes successful case studies and identifies sources of additional information. The document highlights the importance of using participatory approaches and of tailoring activities to local circumstances. Emphasis is on making changes that will improve the livelihoods of people living in or near forests, and on helping users to gain a better understanding of the forms of rural poverty and of how decisions made at the local level affect segments of poor rural communities in different ways - women, children and the elderly being the most vulnerable. The guide will be of interest to forestry and rural development practitioners and the communities they serve, including district forestry officials, extension workers, local planners and administrators, and owners of small-scale enterprises and their employees.