http://www.cciforum.org/pdfs/Livelihoods%20forests%20and%20conservation%20in%20developing%20countries.pdf

Livelihoods, forests, and conservation in developing countries: an overview

Major features of contemporary forest governance include decentralization of forest management, logging concessions in publicly owned commercially valuable forests, and timber certification, primarily in temperate forests. Although a majority of forests continue to be owned formally by governments, the effectiveness of forest governance is increasingly independent of formal ownership. Growing and competing demands for food, biofuels, timber, and environmental services will pose severe challenges to effective forest governance in the future, especially in conjunction with the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. A greater role for community and market actors in forest governance and deeper attention to the factors that lead to effective governance, beyond ownership patterns, is necessary to address future forest governance challenges.

/pdf/changing-governance-of-the-world-s-forests-3ig1g31p7t.pdf

Changing Governance of the World's Forests

Forests provide multiple benefits at local to global scales. These include the global public good of carbon sequestration and local and national level contributions to livelihoods for more than half a billion users. Forest commons are a particularly important class of forests generating these multiple benefits. Institutional arrangements to govern forest commons are believed to substantially influence carbon storage and livelihood contributions, especially when they incorporate local knowledge and decentralized decision making. However, hypothesized relationships between institutional factors and multiple benefits have never been tested on data from multiple countries. By using original data on 80 forest commons in 10 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we show that larger forest size and greater rule-making autonomy at the local level are associated with high carbon storage and livelihood benefits; differences in ownership of forest commons are associated with trade-offs between livelihood benefits and carbon storage. We argue that local communities restrict their consumption of forest products when they own forest commons, thereby increasing carbon storage. In showing rule-making autonomy and ownership as distinct and important institutional influences on forest outcomes, our results are directly relevant to international climate change mitigation initiatives such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and avoided deforestation. Transfer of ownership over larger forest commons patches to local communities, coupled with payments for improved carbon storage can contribute to climate change mitigation without adversely affecting local livelihoods.

/pdf/trade-offs-and-synergies-between-carbon-storage-and-2419ozp1mg.pdf

Trade-offs and synergies between carbon storage and livelihood benefits from forest commons

https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2008_putz001.pdf

Reduced-impact logging : Challenges and opportunities

In the Market But Not of It: Fair Trade Coffee and Forest Stewardship Council Certification as Market-Based Social Change

There has been much attention and effort—on national and international levels—devoted over past decades to global problems of deforestation and forest degradation and to improving forest management and conservation. The number of protected areas has increased dramatically; new funds have been established to finance protection. Also, many international and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have moved to develop markets for sustainably-produced forest products. Despite these efforts, forest degradation has steadily increased throughout much of the world. At the same time there is growing realization that insecure property rights are a key underlying problem and cause of degradation. Property rights to forest lands and resources are often contested, overlapping or simply unenforced. Much of the global forest estate is characterized by confusion and insecurity over property rights. This insecurity undermines sound forest management, for without secure rights forest holders have few incentives—and often lack legal status—to invest in managing and protecting their forest resources. While secure property rights cannot ensure sustained protection and investments in an asset, they are often a necessary condition. This growing global recognition of the importance of property rights is mirrored by longstanding preoccupation with rights issues at local levels. The questions of who owns the forests, who claims them, who has access to them and further, who should own them, are hotly contested in many forest regions of the world. These are often the primary concerns of local people most directly dependent on forest resources. Growing interest in developing markets for environmental services has also brought new attention to property rights issues. Many governments, local organizations and private-sector actors are beginning to consider questions of ownership regarding the services provided by forests, such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity habitat and watershed protection. They are considering who should pay for the production and maintenance of these services. The ways in which existing cultural, legal, and regulatory mechanisms should be applied to these potentially marketable services is likewise becoming a source of considerable debate. This publication is designed to highlight trends in tenure and to provide data for more informed decisions by policy makers, governments, companies, investors, local communities, research institutions and concerned NGOs. We also intend to highlight gaps in available information and raise the question of who owns—and who should own—the world's forests. Andy White and Alejandra Martin led the analysis presented here, working with Owen J. Lynch of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). Given that official …

A. White

Papers

Who owns the world's forests? Forest tenure and public forests in transition.