ABSTRACT
Present patterns of forest control and use have been strongly influenced by the manner in which earlier control by traditional authorities, as part of broader systems of control of land, became overlaid in the colonial and post-colonial periods by varying degrees of state tenure and control over forest and tree resources, and often of tree-bearing land outside forests. Forests were to be conserved as much for their importance as a source of revenue to the state, and of raw materials for forest industry, and more recently for environmental reasons, as for their historical contributions to rural livelihoods and land management. In the process access by rural populations was often constrained or prevented, in particular access to the income-generating benefits to be gained from commercial forest product activities, and rural people became alienated from prevailing approaches to forest management.
