Community Forestry: Ten Years in Review

Community Forestry: Ten Years in Review

Descripción

In the recent past community forestry has witnessed greater development and has influenced the nature of forestry activities more profoundly than any other field in the forestry profession: This alone justifies a review of the wealth of experience gained in community forestry during the last decade and an examination of its current orientations. Community forestry stems from the forestry profession's efforts to set up a new partnership with local people and to respond to the subsistence nee ds of growing rural populations. This new perspective was largely influenced by the rural development strategy advocated by the 1979 Programme of Action of the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development. But it was soon apparent that the involvement of rural communities in forestry required a new understanding of the many important links between trees and people. Of particular significance are the links between forestry and basic needs such as nutrition, food security, off-farm em ployment, energy and the integration of trees in resources management by rural people.