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Forestry for Sustainable Rural Development
Donors
can encourage constructive collaboration.
Ford
Foundation program officers found that they could magnify the
effect of their community forestry grants by providing support
simultaneously to a variety of institutions—government, NGO,
and academic—and by encouraging those institutions to work
together. In many cases Ford program officers attended meetings
that brought the parties together. In that way, they were better
able to understand evolving needs and to make new grants where they
could be most helpful. As part of an international institution with
community forestry programs in several countries, Ford Foundation
staff were also able to link programs in one country with those in
another and thereby stimulate new thinking. Essential to the
Foundation's role was a willingness to stay with the change process
over 10 to 15 years, thus allowing policies, institutional
capabilities, attitudes, and norms to evolve based on
experience.
Key
Challenges
Community
forestry programs were developed to help resolve the problems of
rapid forest degradation by involving local people in the
protection and restoration of forest lands. The programs reviewed
showed remarkable success in achieving that objective. As with any
successful program, however, the changes introduced have spawned a
range of new problems and challenges that must be addressed as
community forestry programs further evolve.
Ascertaining actual village
benefits.
The programs
reviewed revealed that policies have changed substantially in many
countries as have relations between forestry officials and
villagers. What is less clear is the actual benefits villagers have
received, particularly as compared to the costs they have incurred.
When villagers protect or restore a forest, collect nontimber
forest products, create terraced hillsides, or participate in a
village organization, they expend precious time and resources. How
does that expenditure compare with the benefits they derive? The
answers are particularly important since in many community forestry
programs governments are developing arrangements for dividing the
benefits of timber and other forest products between the government
and the villagers. Ensuring that agreements are based on realistic
estimates of costs and benefits will be an important task for the
future.
Promoting the equitable distribution of
benefits.
Community
forestry programs have been introduced as part of a quest for more
equitable development. Earlier policies that excluded local people
from the resource upon which their lives depend seemed an
intolerable injustice to many of the advocates of community
forestry. As