The Path to Sustainable Development

The most important finding of the review is that community forestry has become a central part of forestry policy and practice in Asia. Those living in upland communities as well as socially and geographically marginal areas have been placed on their countries' development agendas. Governments have come to recognize these communities' rights to forest resources, their abilities, and the value of their participation.

In adopting measures that enable greater participation by local people, forestry departments and related agencies have contributed to fundamental shifts in the relationship between governments and their rural citizenry.

In each of the programs reviewed, governments, researchers, and NGOs have come to understand more about the livelihoods of forest-dependent villagers and how they manage their land, forest, and water resources. Villagers also have a better understanding of how to negotiate with their governments and plan with them to achieve a better life. Moreover, in Asia, community forestry has become accepted as a specialization within the forestry profession.

In demonstrating ways to simultaneously address problems of poverty and the environment, community forestry programs represent a major contribution to our understanding of the path to sustainable development. The means by which the programs were developed provide powerful lessons for what is required to advance that kind of development. They also reveal the challenges ahead and the difficulties inherent in efforts to respond to the growing problems of environmental degradation and social and economic inequity. The Ford Foundation hopes that this distillation of its experiences with community forestry in Asia will prove helpful to the many people, agencies, and organizations around the world working to advance sustainable development and promote more equitable societies.