Partcipatory approaches to planning for Community Forestry

Partcipatory approaches to planning for Community Forestry

Descripción

One of the objectives of the Forests, Trees and People Programme (FTPP) is the development of new methods, tools and approaches for community forestry. Within this objective, many activities currently under development are related to participatory methodologies, such as the development of training packages in rapid rural appraisal, the study of management tools for "participatory assessment, monitoring and evaluation" (PAME) and the elaboration of training packages in gender analysis. Over the p ast years, many projects using these tools have been started in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In order to disseminate the results of these experiences, it is important to conduct research on the projects' use of participatory development tools and the effectiveness of this approach. With this in mind, nine case studies of community forestry projects were conducted by national consultants during the period 1993-1994, under the overall guidance of Theo Oltheten, a sociologist working with the Ce ntre for the Study of Education in Developing Countries (CESO) in Holland. Mr. Oltheten has worked extensively with community forestry projects, mainly in Latin America. Among other accomplishments, as project manager of a forestry project in Peru, he managed to turn the project around using the techniques of participatory planning discussed in this study, making it into a successful example of the benefits of this approach.