ABSTRACT
The FAO State of the Forest Report for 2001 opened by noting two seemingly opposite trends in the forest sector: localization and globalization. Many countries were decentralizing the responsibility for forest planning and management while facing the impacts of expanding global trade and globalization. Community forestry is a version of decentralization in which power over the forest and returns from the forest are devolved to democratic local forest communities. The community remains and the global markets remain, but direct control by the national state is reduced. It represents a reversion to an earlier norm of local control.
