ABSTRACT
Forest dependent communities around the world have acted as de facto natural resource managers for millennia, while the nationalization of forests in many countries has taken place largely in the past two centuries. Many national forest management institutions now recognize the need for community participation in management, with governments around the world, including Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal and Brazil, increasingly giving legal recognition of community forest rights. A recent study found that over the past 20 years, over 200 million ha of public forests has been transferred to community managers in 60 countries. The study also found that in a 10-country survey of 80 community forestry (CF) groups, decentralization of public forest management generated improved community livelihood and carbon storage benefits. The authors concluded that “decentralization . . . is not only about forest governance-it is equally about development and climate policies” (Chhatre and Agrawal 2009, 17,669).
