Overview
World Bank

India
Indonesia
Thailand
Brazil

Philippines
Nepal
Costa Rica

Overview

In the complex world of international forestry, often what transpires in the field is barely reflective of what has been designed on paper. Whether site-specific donor-backed projects, national government attempts to reform institutional and sector policies, or local community-generated protection activities, even the best-intentioned efforts to achieve more sustainable and equitable management of the world's forests fail miserably to realize their goals. For the growing number of people concerned with forest protection, particularly in the tropics, a key factor to sustainable management is the full involvement of forest dwelling peoples and those living near forest areas in the planning and implementation of forest management schemes. Not surprisingly, perspectives abound on what actually constitutes "local participation" in forest management processes, running the gamut from sporadic "consultations" with local communities by donor agency staff to extensive engagement of local community ideas and activities throughout the life of a given project.

As part of SDI's attempt to conduct a "comparative analysis" of forest management policies designed by the chief international lending agencies - World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) - and forest management practices on the ground that depend on local community participation, I have examined institutional policies, countless project reports and evaluations, and spoken with agency staff and consultants to gain some insight into the links and gaps between policy and practice. While what has emerged is a disjointed, rather unclear picture of how donor policies concerning forest management and local community participation have translated into reality, some notable shifts in policy thinking and trends have appeared.

Generally, there is increasing language in some donor agency portfolios about the need to incorporate local communities and NGOs into forest and protected area management plans. The World Bank and USAID seem to have made the greatest strides in this area, with the ADB having recently formulated an official forest policy (3/95), and the IDB only just beginning to consider lending for environmental projects.

The World Bank: (back to contents)

Shifts in WB policies can be attributed to several factors. In 1991 the Bank issued a new forest policy (building upon 1978 Forestry Sector Policy Paper) in an attempt to address the impacts of "macroeconomic and other sectoral policies" on forest use. The policy formulated five principles to guide Bank work on forests: applying environmental impact assessments (EIAs) to all sector operations; supporting international initiatives to promote sustainable forest development and conservation; undertaking policy reform and institutional strengthening with an emphasis on public participation in forest planning and management; intensifying and expanding management of areas "suitable for sustainable production of forest products"; and preserving natural forests by designating parks and reserves (this part contained the ban on financing of commercial logging in primary moist tropical forests).

In a 1994 review of the forest policy, however, Bank evaluators found that, despite increases in lending for forestry along these principles, forest loss continued throughout the tropics. The review identified four priority areas in which the Bank should concentrate, including targeting the use of forest resources to reduce poverty, largely through "deepen(ing) participation of people and communities living in or near forests and improv(ing) their livelihoods by supporting innovative institutional arrangements and financing mechanisms as part of a broad approach to rural development and poverty reduction." According to the review, the two main ways for the Bank to do so would be joint forest management and watershed management activities targeted to the rural poor. The review contains a fairly detailed section on how the Bank needs to continue supporting and facilitating institutional change in forestry sectors worldwide and greater public (including local communities) participation in forest use and management; while the Bank's "approach...has changed significantly, the broad agenda is largely unfinished: institutions have been strengthened, but not reformed." Thus, though the Bank has a clear mandate to take a more decentralized, participatory perspective in its operations, it remains to be seen whether or not this will become a reality.

By 1993 the Bank had begun to require that Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) be conducted for all projects in the pipeline, a mandate that does appear to have influenced the nature of recently designed and implemented forestry and biodiversity conservation projects. Because SIAs involve such issues as resettlement, indigenous peoples' rights, land tenure, poverty alleviation, and transboundary issues, SIAs in most cases implicitly involve local participation. While SIAs and EIAs (required since 1989) have tended to drag out project planning processes, an aspect which some outside of the Bank have criticized as typical bureaucratic inefficiency, they do seem to reflect a growing recognition within the Bank that it has to address the critical social issues of its lending policies and practices.

In 1995, in a watershed move, the Bank published a Sourcebook on Participation, containing accounts by Bank Task Managers of selected projects in which they had tried to conduct participatory project planning and implementation processes. Most notable about the TM accounts are the extent to which many went to actively and appropriately engage local communities and NGOs in their projects, and how their respective failed and successful attempts to do so caused them to reflect at length on the reasons why and then apply "lessons" from the experiences to the design of future projects. What seems to emerge as a general consensus is that a true participatory approach needs to start at the very beginning of any project, even as early as the project concept (i.e. obtain local community ideas and support for a project's initial concept, and allow that to determine how or if it evolves).

In terms of specific Bank projects, the degree to which local participation is a focus or even an element of a project depends on several factors. First, most projects conceived, designed and implemented before 1992/3 (i.e. SIA requirement) tend to pay far less attention to the needs and roles of local community participation than do those formulated in the past two years or those currently in the pipeline. This should not, however, be taken categorically as some projects conceived well in advance of the SIA requirement have subsequently been influenced by the SIA process; either because of resistance to project design from recipient country governments, NGOs, or communities, or because Bank team staff recognized that the original design was not appropriate for the given region, and were forced to delay the project until the various social criteria had been "assessed." But typically, a greater number of forestry projects designed over the past 2-3 years have made local participation in planning and implementation processes or active community management of forests their chief objectives.

Secondly, individual preferences of Task Managers frequently determines the degree to which local communities are involved in project processes. Some TMs are thoroughly concerned with making the process completely transparent and looking to communities for ideas and input; others appear to believe that participation is important, but view it essentially as a series of "consultations" or spot meetings with communities to elicit their reactions to the project, which may or may not be mentioned in the final project document, and often fails to actually influence the manner in which the project is implemented; and still others see their main objective as disbursing the project loan without more than a cursory glance at the social issues involved, and often with minimal lip service to local participation. While those Task Managers who do attempt extensive participatory processes in their projects are sometimes accused of dragging them out (by several years in some instances), those who gloss over participation are often confronted with intractable barriers once implementation begins.

Thirdly, often a Bank team will design and prepare a project jointly with the recipient government officials, NGO representatives, outside consultants, and local communities, everyone - including government - appearing to be in agreement on the need for participation and how it should evolve (i.e. what methods). After going through pre-appraisal, appraisal and, finally, Board approval stages, the project will reach implementation phase and money will start to flow. It's usually at this point that things fall apart: the government drags its feet on providing the staff or resources or making the policy reforms it had promised; conflicts arise between government officials at national and local levels re. who will actually have management authority (especially in protected areas projects) over resources; and communities, NGOs and government may refuse to cooperate on formerly agreed upon methods for participation. While the reasons are too innumerable to list here and certainly vary from one country or region to another, the main point is that even the most thoroughly designed and prepared participatory processes can fall apart once the implementation phase begins and the various "stakeholders" realize that they won't or can't do what on paper they said they would.

To some who have worked inside the Bank for many years, the fact that participation has become such a "buzzword" is, in fact, a significant shift from even seven or eight years ago (when the term itself was considered taboo). Some staff have told me that, relative to its policies into the early 1980s, many current trends in the Bank have occurred quite rapidly and continued to gain wider acceptance, primarily in the Policy Division but increasingly in Operations (where things truly count!) as well. EIAs, SIAs, indigenous peoples' rights, land tenure, participation; these things have become far stronger components of Bank projects just in the past few years and, while clearly needing refinement and more testing in the field, do seem to signal a change in future Bank operations. And, perhaps a true signal of change, President Wolfehnson has apparently made participation a major priority for his reign.

Ironically, the fact that participation has become such a "buzzword" has, according to some, detracted from its originally intended definition. When it first arose as an issue to address, those concerned defined it as participation of local communities living in or near areas designated for Bank projects (whether forestry, dams, highways). Increasingly, however, participation has come to imply participation of "all the main stakeholders" (the current jargon) in a given project; in Bank terminology, this includes recipient government agencies, private sector interests, NGOs, researchers and, to varying degrees, local communities. As one former staff member informed me (and as noted above), this broader interpretation of participation not only slows project processes but, in many instances, raises greater conflicts between various "stakeholders," especially government officials and local groups or NGOs. This in turn fractures the participatory process, resulting in stalemate situations or, in some cases, abandoned projects. And, to reiterate, some Task Managers and other staff may be tempted to use the broader interpretation of participation as a way of paying lip service to participation while actually favoring government agendas.

Of the four countries in which SDI is focusing on WB forestry projects - India, Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil - each is the recipient of one or more large-scale forestry and/or biodiversity conservation projects. SDI selected these for several reasons: their size (both in terms of $ and actual scale on ground); their stated emphases on local communities/indigenous peoples' involvement in project management and activities to improve community socio-economic status; and their respective innovativeness in trying new methods of participatory planning and implementation:

- In India, the Bank is supporting several quite large-scale projects, including the Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP) Forestry Programs, and the GEF-funded India Ecodevelopment Project. The two former projects stand at $89 million and $141 million, respectively (latest figures), and the latter at $74 million with $20 mil. from GEF and $5 mil from local people. The Bank has a long history of supporting forest management programs in India, which makes it an interesting area to watch as more innovative and non- traditional projects are tested.

The AP project, currently in its implementation phase, has devoted countless resources, time and energy to designing and implementing a joint forest management (JFM) program, using the ZOPP workshop method of community participation (extensive 3-day process of participation analysis, problem and objectives identification, and action program with communities), followed by additional workshops for NGOs and Forest Department staff. Cited as a case study in the participation Sourcebook, the AP project apparently tried to build on approaches used in an earlier JFM project in West Bengal, wherein Forest Protection Committees (FPCs) - jointly- formed committees of local villagers and Forest Dept. officials - facilitated participatory processes for villagers and FD staff to work together on generating revenues from forest products while protecting resources at the same time. The project met with considerable opposition from high level FD officials unwilling to deviate from their traditional thinking that a forest management program meant "more staff, strip plantations, and seedlings for distribution." Ultimately managing to resolve this, the Bank team has been able to go on and implement the project in keeping with the participatory design. The Task Manager responsible for the preparation phase said that, in retrospect, she should have recognized the need to start participation processes much earlier in the project, i.e. from its original concept point. How things will play out in reality remains to be seen, but a commitment to local community participation does seem evident.

The MP project, as described in most recent documents, seeks to create a statewide forestry project to include institutional reform; improved production of timber and non- timber forest products in designated forests, wastelands and farm land; and biodiversity conservation. "Income improvement" of populations living in and around forest areas is an element of the project, and will involve "introducing local participation" into forest protection and management. What this all implies for field activities is still unclear - the effective implementation date was scheduled for 10/1/95, after which time a full appraisal report was to become available and might enlighten SDI as to intended actions. What is notable, however, and another indication of the Bank's move towards more innovative methods of involving local peoples, is a Village Resource Development Plan (VDRP) which will supposedly be created through participatory planning and management of forest resources, and concentrate on developing alternative income activities for 2500 villages.

With a primary focus on involving local people in the management of 7 designated protected areas and working with them to build alternative livelihood activities, the Ecodevelopment project demonstrates a significant departure from traditional Bank approaches in the forestry sector. These include participatory impact assessments of protected area and local people interactions; participatory microplanning to develop reciprocal agreements about any "negative interactions"; creation of a "village ecodevelopment fund" to facilitate alternative livelihood activities; and capacity-strengthening of implementing institutions (e.g. village groups, park personnel, NGOs) to carry out the above. This type of approach does appear to be representative of an increasing number of GEF biodiversity conservation projects, and will certainly bear watching.

- In Indonesia the site of interest is also a GEF-financed protected area project in the Kerinci-Seblat National Park, Sumatra. Described by several Bank staff as the most challenging and controversial of Bank biodiversity conservation projects, Kerinci has been designated as a prime testing ground for a so-called "Integrated Conservation and Development Project" (ICDP). Having entered the fray of development jargon, ICDP basically means a project that melds conservation and protection activities with livelihood development of local communities. Since this theoretically implies involving local people in management planning and implementation, an ICDP must address a range of social, economic and political issues which, in Kerinci, are endless. They include conflicts between national, provincial and local government agencies; lack of human and financial resources to enforce park regulations; continued encroachment into park by subsistence farmers and migrant workers, with highly fluid and changing migration patterns; gold mining activities; cassiovera planting for which farmers clear cut forests; major potential resettlement issues under the proposed re- demarcation of park boundaries; and huge Bank and GOI bureaucracies.

The project has been fraught with its own staffing problems (4 Task Managers since its initial concept in 1992) and conflicts between the different parties (World Bank, Indonesian government, WWF-Indonesia, a Dutch consulting firm, local communities, forest concessionaires) over how best to set up ICDP; according to some WB staff and outsiders, there is no such thing as an ICDP "model" anywhere since issues vary so much from one place to another, but the hope is that Kerinci will serve as some sort of model for improved forest management elsewhere. Whether the Bank team will manage to resolve enough of the existing conflicts to move the project forward seems uncertain at this point; however, the problems do seem more a combination of the project's size ($39 million, with only $13.5 mil from GEF) and vast objectives, the mix of donors and project implementors, general GOI bureaucracy and reluctance to decentralize forest management in any form, and the complex nature of community interests and activities at the project site.

- Thailand has been selected as the site for a large, two-part IBRD/GEF-funded Forest Conservation and Management project ($80 million total, $13 mil IBRD, $10-12 mil GEF). While the overall IBRD program has as one key objective the formation of joint management agreements with local peoples in buffer zone areas to protect biodiversity, the GEF part consists of more extensive, direct efforts to incorporate local participation into protected area management. According to recent documents and a conversation with the current Task Manager, community and NGO consultations were initiated early in the project preparation process (mid-1992), and included conferences and workshops to discuss NGO roles and to build consensus among villagers, NGOs, Royal Forest Department staff and academicians on issues of human-forest interactions. These allegedly resulted in a "convergence of views in favor of a multi-pronged approach to forest protection." The Bank team also organized village surveys and field visits to potential sites, and continued NGO and community consultations throughout 1993 in order to obtain community input into the final project report and to solicit their ideas about the importance in general of ICDP programs (as in Indonesia, a new thing for Thailand). Again, whether or not the process of participation plays out during implementation remains to be determined (apparently, until the Royal Thai Government officially ratifies the Biodiversity Convention, no money for the project will start flowing). It will certainly be helpful for SDI to obtain feedback from Asia Forest Network members and/or others out there involved in community forest management.

- Finally, in Brazil the Bank has recently launched a substantial multi-donor, multi-component "Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest" ($60 million). Spearheaded by the G-7 nations and approved in concept by the Bank's Board in 1992, the program consists of "an integrated set of projects" (4) to reduce Amazonian deforestation. Its chief objectives are to strengthen public sector capacity to set/enforce sound environmental policies; improve protected area management, including extractive reserves (8 so far identified), parks, and indigenous reserves; and to support efforts to "improve the knowledge base on conservation and sustainable development alternatives" in the Amazon. While still in its infancy and working through an incredibly complex maze of financing, the program appears to be a striking departure for the Bank both in terms of its financial set-up and structure and the extent to which participation of indigenous peoples, local communities, and NGOs is being pursued. Furthermore, the Bank is currently in the process of "decentralizing" most program activities and management to Brazil, where a joint team of Bank Mission staff and Brazilian government officials will take over; it's probably too soon to tell whether this will have a positive or negative impact.

At least two of the four component projects should be of interest to SDI: Extractive Reserves and National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) and Indigenous Peoples. According to recent documents and the Task Manager (an anthropologist!) for the Extractive Reserves project, the overall program's intent is to address and resolve the numerous root causes of forest destruction, including land tenure, Indian and indigenous peoples land and resource rights, migrant workers, cattle ranchers, rubber tappers, government developers. The Extractive Reserves Project aims to set up local level management plans for protected areas and reserves, while working with local communities and indigenous peoples to initiate income-generating activities based on sustainable resource use. An emphasis is on strengthening local institutions in areas of community organization, education, marketing, health, etc. to take responsibility for the project (together with National Rubber Tappers Union).

In tandem with this project is the FUNAI component, whose chief objective is to demarcate and "regularize" the remaining tracts of Indian land in the Amazon (a formal legalization process decreed by the federal government in 1970 that has seriously lagged and, to date, has only covered about 50% of all the lands designated). There seems to be consensus among Bank staff, Brazilian officials, some NGOs and local leaders that this process is a prerequisite to establishing any sort of resource protection program. One example of the Bank's innovative thinking in this program is the creation of a Project Consultative Commission (PCC) to do "systematic indigenous consultations" with representatives from four indigenous organizations or NGOs (selected via consultation w/indigenous people) and four government agencies. The TM with whom I spoke thinks that, in fact, the most difficult part of setting up the Commission will be selecting appropriate indigenous people representatives; since not all Indian groups are willing to join the project or are automatically sensitive to the needs and interests of other groups, it will likely be a lengthy and delicate process (for more detail about projects, see specific project files on disk).

The US Agency for International Development (USAID): (back to contents)

Given the present negative climate in the US towards international development assistance, the future of USAID forestry or biodiversity conservation projects is highly uncertain. Significant shifts in USAID policies have, however, become a hallmark of Brian Atwood's administration and, should USAID continue to exist, will likely influence the direction and nature of future field operations.

Like the World Bank, USAID has adopted participation as a key element in many projects designed and implemented over the past few years. Though typically not on the same monetary scale of World Bank projects (with few exceptions), USAID-funded initiatives in the natural resources management sector have significantly influenced recent efforts to decentralize resource management and protection from national or state governments to local authorities and communities. The agency has worked harder to form partnerships with US, international, and local NGOs in order to bridge gaps between government officials and "affected" communities. And, as USAID has gone through several internal reorganizations since at least 1990, responsibility for project management has increasingly been shifted out to the Missions, in part to reduce the agency's overall budget but largely in the recognition that projects tend to be more effectively managed from field offices, where officials have direct contact with the interested parties and often a far better understanding of a project's real needs.

Within the past two years, USAID has published several documents concerning its efforts in sustainable development and biodiversity conservation agency-wide, as well as profiles of specific projects that describe their goals, achievements, weaknesses, and areas needing improvement. The agency has also established an in-house "Center for Development Information and Evaluation," whose mandate is to conduct thorough evaluations of selected USAID projects - employing both agency staff and outside consultants - and make hard recommendations for future actions. What these documents and reports reveal is notable: one, USAID's commitment to becoming more "transparent" to the general public; and two, a well-intentioned attempt to assess its activities in the field and determine how it can make its projects more participatory and effective in the field. And, to a far greater extent than ever before, "projects" now focus on building self-sufficient institutions and emphasizing processes of development that will sustain themselves once donor funding ends.

Numerous staff whom I have queried about USAID's commitment to participatory processes in the field say that commitment is real and that, as with many in the World Bank, project managers and staff are looking to past projects for clues as to methods that worked, ones that did not, and what sorts of critical issues need to be addressed when initiating participatory planning and implementation processes. In addition, with the growing number of USAID projects contracted out to U.S. or international consulting firms and NGOs, more of them benefit from the knowledge and perspectives that such outsiders can bring to projects, whether from experience on other development agency projects, their own research in the field, or from direct involvement with grassroots level movements and local communities on similar issues.

Several USAID projects currently on the ground bear noting as examples of the agency's efforts to put into motion its newer policies:

- In the Philippines, where USAID has devoted 5 years and substantial sums (over $125 million as of 8/94) to a large, country-wide natural resource management program (NRMP), the program has had since its inception a focus on empowering local upland communities to take over management of forests on which they depend. While the first phase (4 years) of the program concentrated primarily on policy reforms that would shift management authority from the central Department of Environment and Natural Resources to local communities, the second phase (3-4 years) has as its chief goal the joint design and development of community management plans and activities in 10 sites throughout the country. Though it is too soon to know how effectively program activities are playing out, USAID's commitment to supporting more decentralized, equitable forest management plans has been reiterated throughout the program's life. Further details about this program will hopefully come from Peter Walpole in Manila (Asia Forest Network) who can also identify the right people to contact - either in the Philippines or in the US - about its current status.

- In Nepal, USAID has over the past 5-6 years unfolded an expanding portfolio of forestry projects aimed at promoting community forest management throughout the country. At least five projects are currently in place, including an effort to train Nepal Institute of Forestry staff in community forestry (with Yale University); joining a multi-donor Community Forest Program to establish local forest user groups and transfer management rights to these groups; and assisting U.S. and Nepalese PVOs/NGOs to do small development projects including community forest and biodiversity conservation (with Woodlands Mountain Institute), and training local PVOs in participatory land management, project design and implementation, and fundraising. Both USAID staff and outside consultants with whom I spoke agree that the agency is truly committed to making community management of resources a reality in Nepal.

- In Costa Rica USAID is nearing completion on a 5-year project (BOSCOSA) to establish a national park on the Osa Peninsula. Initially contracted to the World Wildlife Fund by the GOCR to set aside an area for conservation purposes, BOSCOSA became partially supported by USAID in 1990 in the form of a grant to the Costa Rican implementing organization, Neotropica Foundation, for its work with local communities. Activities included involving local farmers in long-range forestry planning in the park; working with communities to develop ecotourism plans and set up community nurseries for reforestation efforts; providing field research and training in biodiversity conservation and environmental education; and establishing a research, training and extension center (Centro BOSCOSA). BOSCOSA has been fraught with problems since its inception but, from what most people familiar with the project have told me, not due to inefficiency or shortsightedness on USAID's part; rather, to existing conflicts between gold miners, hunters, local farmers, migrant workers, and government officials over use of the area and its resources. And, reflective of the difficulties in trying to help create a self-sustaining institution have been the Neotropica Foundation's failed efforts to adequately involve local communities in its activities or to interact with local farmers beyond those with relatively large land holdings (i.e. those most willing and able to start up agroforestry projects). According to a CDIE evaluation of BOSCOSA, the lack of significant community involvement in or knowledge of the project is more likely a result of Neotropica's own constraints and its priority to seek long-term financial support once USAID money stops, rather than USAID's ineffectiveness in the field.

What these and other recent USAID efforts seem to indicate is a recognition by the agency that past development attempts have been too short-term, output-oriented, top-down, and poorly managed from central headquarters in Washington. The concept of local community participation in forestry and biodiversity conservation "projects" (as well as other sector projects) appears to have caught on throughout the agency, and is reflective of USAID's increased emphasis on sustainable development since Administrator Atwood came on board (see Fall 1994 interview with Atwood and Prickett in USAID Environment and Natural Resources News). The push to move management control out to field missions should be far more conducive to integrating communities into planning and management processes, though this could easily be threatened as a greater number of missions are closed down. Bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency will probably continue to plague USAID initiatives in the field and in Washington; but if the agency is able to significantly decentralize its own management, form more partnerships with in-country organizations and decision-makers, and concentrate on supporting processes of development, institution-building and participation, its efforts may bear fruit. Like the World Bank, USAID will always be largely at the mercy of recipient governments and their own bureaucracies, and will have to find more innovative ways to work around such constraints. Ironically, at a time when this one development assistance agency is taking great strides to improve and make more effective its activities, it's main source of support is melting away. Though USAID still has a ways to go in bringing participation to the fore of its field work and specific projects/programs, overall it does seem to be making remarkable progress.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB): (back to contents)

The Asian Development Bank unveiled a new forestry policy in March, 1995 that will allegedly prevent it from financing any rural infrastructure or other public investment projects that would contribute to forest loss in the Asia-Pacific region. According to an outside news release (see ADB file), the policy is "based on protection, production and participation:...protection of forest soils, water and biodiversity, production of renewable resources and harvesting in a sustainable manner, and participation of local communities and NGOs in policy formulation and implementation."

What the new policy means in reality is anyone's guess, but it might be worthwhile for SDI to track ADB forest activities to the extent possible. From the Internet I've pulled down project summaries for a handful of recently proposed forestry/natural resource management projects. Two fairly large-scale forest development projects are slated for China and India, with the one in China focussing somewhat on production of non-timber forest products in a buffer zone area, and the one in India chiefly concerned with development of industrial forests, some lip service to social impact assessments. Of most interest are two projects proposed for Indonesia: Sustainable Forestry Development in Maluku, and Conservation Development in Segara Anakan, West Java. Details are sparse, but the Maluku effort aims to strengthen Ministry of Forestry capacity to "sustainably manage" forests "in conformity with socially optimal uses" and to "develop and implement appropriate participatory approaches to rehabilitation and management of critically degraded" watersheds; what seems unclear is where and when community participation will come into play. Likewise, in Segara Anakan, there will allegedly be "discussions" with village leaders during a socioeconomic survey as well as some sort of workshop; beyond this there are no details on methodologies or processes for community participation.

Like the World Bank and USAID, the ADB appears to be adopting new thinking about its development policies and practices to address environmental and social concerns, though at a much slower and more minimal pace. While it's harder to track ADB activities from Washington, one can find some information on the Internet as well as from the Department of Commerce's Bank Liaison Center. And the ADB has apparently just opened its own liaison office here in DC from which project reports and documents will supposedly be available. Hopefully this indicates a sincere effort by the institution to become more transparent, but only time can tell.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB): (back to contents)

I have very little information on the Inter-American Development Bank's activities except that, as of July, 1995, I was informed that the Bank was just beginning to consider lending for specific environmental projects. The institution does not appear to have a clearly formulated forestry policy, but it would be worth checking out at some point in the future.

SDI Future Actions: (back to contents)

While there are still staff members of the World Bank and USAID in Washington who should be tracked down for further information on specific projects and policy changes, I think SDI would do well to begin contacting individuals and organizations in the field to "ground-truth" the information gathered thus far. Clearly it's preferable to do this through actual site visits but, in most cases, it also makes sense to send preliminary faxes or letters to individuals you know you want to contact (as I've already done for the 4 projects in Asia, sending letters to selected members of the Network; I've started a running list of possible contacts in Costa Rica and Brazil).

By and large, staff at the agencies are pretty open to questions about projects on which they've worked, particularly if you've done your homework and can ask specific questions about the project. But they will typically refer you to other people who know more or were more involved in a project than they; people's time is tight and few of them are willing to spend it in lengthy conversation about details of one project or program. The important thing is to be very clear about who SDI is, what is its overall mission, and how do you plan to use the information they give you (but do so succinctly!). And, generally, most people have been quite willing to send me any documents or reports I've requested; one thing to make clear is that you've already checked with either the Bank's Public Information Center (PIC) or USAID's library database for the information. Sometimes they'll even send you things that are otherwise only available at a fee through the PIC or USAID library.

It's possible to get information from some of the NGOs in Washington about donor projects, but the amount and quality will vary greatly. Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, and InterAmerican Foundation are the types that will be more familiar with specific projects in the field, though often only if they happen to have offices or programs of their own in that area; in those cases they will tell you to contact the field office staff for specific information. Groups like Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, World Resources Institute, Friends of the Earth, and Global Forest Policy Project deal more with the broader policy issues and can probably only be helpful about what's happening in Washington or at the global level (with occasional exceptions). The trick is to find out which staff members at any organization have background in or affinity for a region in which you're interested; otherwise you may get referred around a lot!

The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a non-governmental, non-profit organization funded through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, has been studying the trends in policy among the major donor agencies, including the World Bank, that support the role of communities in managing forests and natural resources. SDI identified a number of the newer projects that have a major community forestry component and emphasize village level development. We selected the newer projects because they also should reflect the participatory policies introduced in recent years by donor agencies and we are interested to see how these policies are being implemented on the ground. SDI's main purpose is to improve the understanding of the pivotal role of local communities in sustaining environmental quality and economic development. Thus the participatory policy of these major donors is of particular interest to us.

I paid a ten day visit to India, in February 1996, to gain a sense of what is happening at the village level in the state of Madhya Pradesh where a statewide World Bank Project has adopted Joint Forest Management to combat increasing crisis of forest resource degradation.

National parks, wildlife reserves and other types of protected areas are a crucial means of conserving biological diversity. Local communities living within or adjacent to these areas have been excluded from the management plans in the past. The ensuing conflict of interest between the local people and the typically underfunded park management has caused people to question this traditional approach to conservation. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that the management plans for protected area systems must include local people. This shift in approach has come from the discovery that the park management cannot work through policing by the park staff alone. Without attention to the underlying causes for continued exploitation of forest resources by local communities, the protected area systems will ultimately be diminished to a point of no return.

In tropical Southeast Asian protected areas, where the local communities are relying on the forests as a source of livelihood, removing access to the forest by setting park boundaries cannot succeed in eliminating forest exploitation without the creation of alternative income generation. Apart from the fact that the national park staff cannot police the hundreds of thousands of hectares of park, there is a need for regional and spatial planning in these areas where park systems have been set aside. Thus the concept of integrated conservation and development projects applies to the local and regional level, and attempts to find a balance between the needs for the conservation of biodiversity and economic development.

The Kerinci Seblat National Park is one of the largest reserves in Indonesia, spanning four provinces across the southern part of Sumatra. The area was identified in the 1980's as an important area for wildlife and biodiversity. Much of the area had been set aside from Dutch colonial times. In the past fifty years since independence, settlers have been pouring into the richly forested area from all over Sumatra and from Java. In the mid-1980's, the World Wide Fund for Nature together with the Indonesian government, set aside this area to become a national park. In 1988 WWF established an office worked with the provincial, regional and local government to develop park boundaries. In 1992, due to increasing encroachment, the boundaries were redrawn. By this time, the site had been proposed to become a World Bank and Global Environment Facility pilot project for the integrated conservation and development project concept.

In the state of Orissa, in Eastern India, village-based forest protection committees are taking matters of forest management and conservation into their own hands. This community forest protection in Orissa is fundamentally a decentralized grassroots movement initiated by small villages to protect local natural forests from further degradation. In many places in Orissa, communities, on their own accord, are forging unions or federations representing hundreds of villages to protect and regenerate forests, and even push for policy reforms. Orissa may have the most progressive forest policy of any Indian state; yet, inconsistencies in state forest policy and incentives for forest commercialization present obstacles for practical implementation of sound and equitable management. The vitality of these village-based movements demonstrates that implementation of sound forest management practices by forest communities is leading the policy transformation in this region; it is the forest department that needs to catch up with the local communities managing forests and not vice versa.

In a recent visit to the vast state of Orissa, Claudia D'Andrea, Program Associate of the Sustainable Development Institute investigated the rising phenomenon of the formation of unions or federations by visiting with four non-governmental organizations involved at various levels with some of the communities organizing themselves into very large federations. Ms. D'Andrea visited the grassroots organization People's Institute for Participatory Action Research (PIPAR) active in the Dhenkanal district of Orissa with the highest number of forest protection committees in the state; the Bhubaneshwar-based Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC) active in Western Orissa and the neighboring state of Eastern Madhya Pradesh; Vasundhara Institute, a forestry sector support organization active at both policy level and on the ground near to the state's capital; and OXFAM (India) Trust, which works all over the state but supports some activities of the Movement for Trees and Living Beings, known as BOJBP, one of the oldest and most conservation-oriented of the federation movements.

After the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, a special organizing committee was set up to establish an independent global commission addressing the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The idea for an independent commission developed out of a proposal from Ambassador Ola Ullsten of Sweden at the Global Forest Meeting held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1992. The goal of the Commission is to examine the use of the world's forests in the context of sustainable development. The WCFSD was launched by the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State in June 1995. A series of five regional Public Hearings are to be held around the world to identify the regional and international institutional, legal, and policy reforms that will lead to more equitable and sustainable forest management. The first of these five hearings was recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia for the Asia region. The next regional meeting will be held in Winnipeg, Canada, September 29 through October 5, 1996, and will address the problems of forests and sustainable development in North America and Mexico, the NAFTA region. Subsequent meetings will be held for the Latin American region, in Georgetown, Guyana in early December; the African region, either in the Congo Basin or the Dry Zone countries of Africa in early 1997; and in Russia for the European region in mid 1997. The following is a report by the Sustainable Development Institute which had the opportunity to attend the first Asia regional hearing and meeting.

The World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD) is an independent body of experts that was established after the Earth Summit of June 1992 to examine the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The Commission is holding five regional public hearings around the world to hear the views of different "stakeholder" groups on these issues. The Secretariat and the Commission will produce interim reports, and a final report will be issued in mid-1997.

The North American hearing was the second of the five regional hearings, following the model of the 1980's Brundtland Commission, planned by the WCFSD. The Sustainable Development Institute was invited to attend all meetings and speaking events along with the panel of experts. The Commission aimed to examine three areas: the sustainable use and management of forests; trade and export of forest-related products, and financial mechanisms and instruments needed for sustainable development.

The North America hearing focused on Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The abundance of Canadian stakeholders tended to dominate the hearing and detracted from the concerns over forests and sustainable development in Mexico and the U.S.. However, despite the smaller numbers of Mexicans and U.S. participants, an overwhelming message emerged that greater local and community-based control over forest resources may lead to wiser and more sustainable use and management of forests. Less decisive conclusions were reached on the other two areas of focus.

It was the intent of the Commissioners to have the participants address several questions in each panel that might indicate areas where international agreements might be strengthened, or recommendations might be formulated for the development of wiser use of diminishing global forest resources.

The WCFSD is concerned that progress is not being made in stopping forest loss and degradation due to a variety of realities on the ground that are frequently not discussed at international forest meetings. Thus the Commission has attempted to examine problems of forests and sustainable development not being addressed in the major global forest policy fora such as the UNCSD's IPF; Montreal, Helsinki, & Tarapoto Processes; the COP to the Convention on Biodiversity; and ITTO; At each of the regional hearings, the Commission has raised four basic questions:

• How much and what type of forest should be managed and protected?
• How should forests be managed and protected?
• By whom should they be managed and protected? and
• For whose benefits?

On behalf of the IUCN, I attended the 15th Commonwealth Forestry Conference in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe from 12-17 May 1997. My primary goal was to gain an understanding of the direction of the Commonwealth Forestry Conference. Additionally, it was an opportunity to broaden the membership of the working group on Community Involvement in Forest Management (WG-CIFM) and further the network of practitioners in the development of specific recommendations for community forestry policy. This community forestry policy project is being run through an electronic conference of the working group on CIFM and the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a Washington-based NGO with a policy research project focusing on community forestry. The recommendations and results of this electronic conference will be directed to a number of international and independent bodies, including the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD).

Overview

In the complex world of international forestry, often what transpires in the field is barely reflective of what has been designed on paper. Whether site-specific donor-backed projects, national government attempts to reform institutional and sector policies, or local community-generated protection activities, even the best-intentioned efforts to achieve more sustainable and equitable management of the world's forests fail miserably to realize their goals. For the growing number of people concerned with forest protection, particularly in the tropics, a key factor to sustainable management is the full involvement of forest dwelling peoples and those living near forest areas in the planning and implementation of forest management schemes. Not surprisingly, perspectives abound on what actually constitutes "local participation" in forest management processes, running the gamut from sporadic "consultations" with local communities by donor agency staff to extensive engagement of local community ideas and activities throughout the life of a given project.

As part of SDI's attempt to conduct a "comparative analysis" of forest management policies designed by the chief international lending agencies - World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) - and forest management practices on the ground that depend on local community participation, I have examined institutional policies, countless project reports and evaluations, and spoken with agency staff and consultants to gain some insight into the links and gaps between policy and practice. While what has emerged is a disjointed, rather unclear picture of how donor policies concerning forest management and local community participation have translated into reality, some notable shifts in policy thinking and trends have appeared.

Generally, there is increasing language in some donor agency portfolios about the need to incorporate local communities and NGOs into forest and protected area management plans. The World Bank and USAID seem to have made the greatest strides in this area, with the ADB having recently formulated an official forest policy (3/95), and the IDB only just beginning to consider lending for environmental projects.

(In March 1997, the Sustainable Development Institute and sent e-mail queries to some 150 people, from twenty-six countries, with a professional interest in promoting the idea of community forest management. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) kindly agreed to provide SDI with the e-mail addresses of its Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management, a multi-stakeholder network facilitated by IUCN. We asked for suggestions and comments about the kinds of national and international level actions and policy shifts that could best strengthen current moves toward greater local control over forests. On the basis of the many useful responses received, we have modified and sharpened the inventory of ideas we initially circulated.)

What follows is a new draft statement on community forestry's importance and needs. Before putting this document in final form, we once again invite your reactions.)

Communities and Forests: Strengthening the Field

Roger D. Stone and Claudia D'Andrea
July, 1998

Overview

In March 1997, the Sustainable Development Institute sent email queries to some 150 people, from twenty-six countries, with a professional interest in promoting the idea of community forest management. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) kindly agreed to provide SDI with the email addresses of the Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management, a multistakeholder network facilitated by IUCN. We asked for suggestions and comments about the kinds of national and international level actions and policy shifts that could best strengthen current moves toward greater local control over forests.

On the basis of the many useful responses received, we modified and sharpened the skeleton inventory of ideas we initially circulated.  To the extent possible, the recommendations for actions that follow represent the collective opinion of our respondents.  While they were most generous with their time and thoughts, however, these people were not asked to help form the analysis that backs up the recommendations. For these sections of the paper, the authors are solely responsible.