This article was originally published by Forests News
Forests are critically important for many of the world’s poor who depend on them for food, income, medicine and building materials. As such, forests are a nexus of broadly held policy goals such as poverty reduction, economic growth, conservation and climate change. Most forests in the developing world are governed, in practice, through community-based tenure systems.
By Anne Larson, Principal Scientist, CIFOR
The recent World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, held this past March in Washington D.C., provided a unique opportunity to reflect on collective land tenure reforms not only from a research point of view, but also from that of governments.
Traditionally, in the context of environment and natural resources management, many communication efforts have focused on the dissemination of technical information to end-users who were expected to adopt them. Development practitioners were trying to ‘push’ their products on communities in order to receive community commitment to their development initiatives.
A document describing the manner in which commercial forestry will be carried out, and which may specify optimum harvest rates, means of minimizing environmental impacts, measures to ensure the health and safety of workers, and processes to accommodate interests of local communities. Source: /*-->*/ Guide to Forestry Contracts - Understanding Key Provisions (Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP))
