ABSTRACT
Decentralization and governance are themes to which Switzerland has traditionally attributed high importance in international cooperation. As with many other countries, Switzerland believes that decentralized forest governance is pivotal in addressing most of the critical issues related to sustainable forest management. At meetings of the Committee on Forestry of the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome in 2005, for example, many participants stated that communitybased forestry was particularly well placed to address poverty reduction. It was repeatedly mentioned that much remained to be done, since the underlying causes of deforestation, such as land tenure uncertainty and inequity, had yet to be addressed.
