Community forestry

Community forestry is an evolving branch of forestry whereby the local community plays a significant role in forest management and land use decision making by themselves in the facilitating support of government as well as change agents. It involves the participation and collaboration of various stakeholders including community, government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The level of involvement of each of these groups is dependent on the specific community forest project, the management system in use and the region. It gained prominence in the mid-1970s and examples of community forestry can now be seen in many countries including Nepal, Indonesia, Korea, Brazil, India and North America.(specific the country and/or region)(i.e. harvestable products other than wood, e.g. game meat) Community forestry is an evolving branch of forestry whereby the local community plays a significant role in forest management and land use decision making by themselves in the facilitating support of government as well as change agents. It involves the participation and collaboration of various stakeholders including community, government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The level of involvement of each of these groups is dependent on the specific community forest project, the management system in use and the region. It gained prominence in the mid-1970s and examples of community forestry can now be seen in many countries including Nepal, Indonesia, Korea, Brazil, India and North America. Community forestry is a branch of forestry that deals with the communal management of forests for generating income from timber and non-timber forest products as forms of goods while in other hand regulating ecosystem, downstream settlements benefits from watershed conservation, carbon sequestration and aesthetic values as in forms of services. It has been considered one of the most promising options of combining forest conservation with rural development and community empowerment and poverty reduction objectives. Community forestry is defined by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations as 'any situation that intimately involves local people in forestry activity'. Community forestry exists when the local community in an area plays a significant role in land use decision-making and when the community is satisfied with its involvement and benefits from the management of the surrounding forest and its resources. Community forestry is deepened by SPERI via the concept of spirit forest where is source and space for maintaining livelihood identity and cultural values of local communities. Community forestry is first implemented through the establishment of a legal and institutional framework including the revision of legal norms and regulations for forest management, the development of National Forest Plans and the strengthening of decentralization processes to sub-national levels of government. The second principal line of action is the implementation of pilot projects to demonstrate the feasibility of the community forestry framework. However, a study by the Overseas Development Institute shows that the technical, managerial and financial requirements stipulated by the framework are often incompatible with local realities and interests. A successful legal and institutional framework will incorporate the strengthening of existing institutions and enable the dissemination of locally appropriate practices as well as the local capacity for regulation and control. In a 2016 review of community-based forestry, FAO estimated that almost one-third of the world's forest area is under some form of community-based management. Community forestry first came to prominence in the mid-1970s and has continued to evolve over the last few decades in a growing number of countries. The availability of forest resources are often greatly reduced for use by the local people due to increasing pressures to cultivate the land, reliance on the forest resources are also affected by economic and political changes. The evolution of community forestry in Nepal dates back to the late 1970s and was first instilled as an attempt to improve the management of forest resources and address environmental issues that were of great concern with the countries failing centralized forest policy. Over the past two decades, community forestry has been applied successfully in many developing countries, with its main goal being the alleviation of poverty amongst local forest communities and forest conservation. More recently, community forestry has been implemented in developing countries and it has been successful in its aims of sustainable forest management, climate change adaptation plan of action, and securing socio-economic benefits for local communities.