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Description:
The Community Forestry Policy Project
Tropical forest degradation remains a worldwide problem that constitutes a security risk--as well as a severe environmental hazard--for many nations and regions. By treating these forests less as biological resources or human habitats than as commodities, governments, several branches of industry, and international development agencies have all contributed to the problem. Among many remedies being attempted, an especially promising one is the empowerment of tribal and indigenous forest dwellers in many lands who benefit not from the forest's destruction but from its survival and regeneration. In many developing countries, community forestry projects have yielded encouraging results at a low cost.
With a three-year grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, SDI works:
- to highlight these positive examples in the global policy making communities, and
- to emphasize among aid donors and lenders the gap between their new policies with regard to community participation in forest projects, and what is actually happening in practice.
SDI conducted a ground-breaking global e-mail conference on this subject. Findings are included in the 1997 report by the independent World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, and in more complete form in SDI's own major report to be published in 1998.
Starting in 1998, having completed the preparation of broad recommendations to strengthen the community forestry movement, SDI plans to inaugurate an implementation phase of its project. Through a series of workshops and further publications, we will try to define and promote what can be done within key forested nations to remove obstacles and hasten progress toward the empowerment of local communities. |
