Multistakeholder forums (MSFs) are applied in territorial planning with the goal of bringing together diverse actors in decision‐making, allowing the participation and empowerment of indigenous and local communities, protecting their territories, and promoting community‐based conservation efforts. However, important questions remain. How are territorial planning MSFs shaped by context and power? Can they represent communities’ diversity, respect their ancestral rights, and bring real change? This article explores how context and power affect the capacities and challenges of territorial planning MSFs to include, represent, empower, and benefit communities. Examining actors’ perceptions, we comparatively analyze two cases, in two Brazilian states with contrasting contexts. We conclude that territorial planning MSFs are highly political spaces influenced by complexities in context, power relations, and communities’ diversity. They may include, represent, and empower communities and help recognize and conserve their territories, but not necessarily. Especially in difficult settings, communities face more challenges than other actors to be represented and participate at MSFs, and territorial planning may empower or “invisibilize” communities. Other mechanisms (e.g., social action) can be key for communities instead of, or in synergy with, MSFs.
Tag: community forestry
Where to put community-based forestry?: Reconciling conservation and livelihood in Lampung, Indonesia
Community-based forestry (CBF) has been promoted as a potential win-win solution for improving forest conservation and livelihood outcomes. Incorporating location-specific factors from participants’ perspectives in the design and implementation of CBF has been noted as an important prerequisite for ensuring positive outcomes. This study investigates benefits and challenges of CBF perceived by participating farmers in two Community Forests (HKM – Hutan Kemasyarakatan) in Lampung, Indonesia. Two sites were chosen systematically based on their distinct biophysical characteristics. Through qualitative assessments using interviews and focus group discussions with the farmers, we found that securing land tenure is the most important motivation for them to participate in CBF and abide by the government-imposed rules and regulations. Participants in both sites have experienced increased income, as well as other benefits, such as reduced fire incidents and illegal activities. However, benefits and challenges that the two HKMs face differ and are affected by their biophysical features, such as elevation, slope, proximity to village and roads. Participants, especially in the remote HKM in high elevation, perceive long-term and poorly monitored goals, such as reforestation, unrealistic. Site-specific and targeted technical supports are needed to identify overstory tree species that can also provide livelihood benefits. We argue for explicit considerations of biophysical features for CBF site designations and technical supports that meet site specific needs. This study provides a practical pathway to ensure economic benefits of CBF, which is an important factor for promoting CBF’s success.
Non-timber forest product utilization under community forest management in northern Thailand
Forest resources are a salient and critical issue requiring ongoing attention by the Thai government. Community forest management (CFM) is a practice used to, among other things, resolve land use issues and regulate the extraction and use of non-timber forest product (NTFPs). Managing as a community forest can not only enhance the livelihoods of the local people but also improve their socio-economic condition. This research was conducted at the Ban Mae Chiang Rai Lum Community Forest located in Pa Mae Phrik National Forest Reserve in Thailand’s northern province of Lampang. We collected species biodiversity data of the forest’s total area of 3,925 ha using a systematic sampling method, and twenty-five 40 × 40 m (0.16 ha) survey plots were established in the community forest. Interviews of 159 household heads and/or other household representatives were conducted using a designed questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on information regarding the households’ NTFP utilization habits and engagement in CFM processes. A forest survey was conducted which found that there were 197 plant species, 144 genera, and 62 families in the community forest. Of these, 160 plant species were classified as having medicinal uses, 89 were used as food, 37 as extractives, 32 for firewood, and 12 for fibers. This study also revealed that unmonitored over-exploitation of NTFPs may negatively impact forest biodiversity. As surveyed, 68.55% of households depended on NTFPs. The value of the harvested NTFPs was 6.35% of the total community income. A positive correlation between NTFP income and CFM suggests that utilization of NTFPs combined with CFM can create income opportunities and promote participation in CFM. In addition, income earned from NTFPs and participation in CFM were directly related to the socio-economics of identifiable groups in this community. Laborers, merchants, and low-income families utilized NTFPs to a lesser degree. Single people, household heads, those with a bachelor’s degree, and low income families were less likely to participate in CFM while land owners were more likely to do so. This study implies that the harvesting of NTFPs should not go unchecked, especially of species that are threatened or likely to be threatened if over-harvested. Efforts to enhance lower income household utilization, to more equitably distribute the benefits, and to incentivize community involvement should be prioritized as doing so is crucial to maintaining a healthy supply of NTFPs and safeguarding the community forest biodiversity.
Masculinities in Forests: Representations of Diversity
While forestry is widely considered a masculine domain, a significant portion of the literature on gender and development focuses on the role of women, not men. This book addresses this gap and also highlights how there are significant, demonstrable differences in masculinities from forest to forest. The book develops a simple conceptual framework for considering masculinities, one which both acknowledges the stability or enduring quality of masculinities, but also the significant masculinity-related options available to individual men within any given culture. The author draws on her own experiences, building on her long-term experience working globally in the conservation and development worlds, also observing masculinities among such professionals. The core of the book examines masculinities, based on long-term ethnographic research in the rural Pacific Northwest of the US; Long Segar, East Kalimantan; and Sitiung, West Sumatra, both in Indonesia. The author concludes by pulling together the various strands of masculine identities and discussing the implications of these various versions of masculinity for forest management.
Revisits to Old Haunts
This chapter has three main parts: The first reflects on masculinities in my neighbourhood in rural forested upstate New York in 2019; the second reports a revisit to Bushler Bay, Washington in 2017; and the third describes conditions in Long Segar and Long Anai, East Kalimantan in 2019. Global and local changes in habitats and gender relations are examined as they relate to forest management.
Understanding gender dynamics in the context of rural transformation processes: An East Kalimantan case study
This study set out to illustrate and understand how the ongoing processes of rural transformation are influencing women’s and men’s labor, and broader gender relations among the Kenyah. It examines the changes that have occurred in two Uma’ Jalan Kenyah villages in East Kalimantan – based on previous longterm ethnographic research (beginning in 1979 and continuing periodically until 2004), ending with a Rapid Rural Appraisal visit in 2019. Various development efforts have altered these peoples’ environment, from dense tropical rainforest in the 1970s, through extensive forest loss due successively to logging, industrial timber plantations and transmigration. Most recently oil palm plantations have flourished over much of the province (including the two study communities), prompting radical changes to people’s agricultural practices. Here, we examine the implications of these changes for men’s and women’s lives, roles and interactions. The most surprising finding is the continuation of comparatively equitable gender dynamics among the Kenyah. This is in the face of narratives and policies – from education, government, business and religion – with seriously marginalizing gender implications, to which the people are increasingly exposed.
Tenure reform for better forestry: An unfinished policy agenda
The global community is currently grappling with multiple and overlapping social and environmental threats. These include the climate emergency, COVID-19 and the threat of widespread hunger, and the accelerating loss of biodiversity. All of these threats point to an urgent need to restore and sustainably manage land and forests. Studies are pointing to the critical role of tenure reform, and in particular strengthening collective forest tenure, as an effective means to reduce deforestation, mitigate climate change, restore ecosystem services and maintain biodiversity. Since the 1970s, countries worldwide have attempted to better recognize the customary rights of local communities. Yet despite over 40 years of effort, collective forest tenure reforms have yielded only moderate results. This article draws on recent assessments conducted in 23 countries by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on community-based forestry and associated forest tenure regimes based on the internationally endorsed Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (the VGGT). The findings suggest that governments are increasingly giving legal recognition to community rights to use both timber and non-timber forest products for commercial purposes. Yet, the tenure provided to collective forestry is less robust than that held by companies and smallholders in a number of ways. These include fewer legal protections, more barriers to the use of these rights, inadequate access to justice, and less administrative support in documenting rights. Furthermore, in many cases the existing community forestry legal provisions are not implemented. The relatively successful cases suggest that with robust tenure, communities and smallholders can be potent vehicles for moving towards sustainable forest management and mitigating climate change, improving local livelihoods, contributing to timber and non-timber product economies, and achieving several of the Sustainable Development Goals. But for this, governments will need to strengthen community and local rights within their legal frameworks and mainstream implementation in government policies and practices. Non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, donors, research institutions and academia can provide important support through policy implementation, research, and ensuring inclusive policy formulation processes.
Can Multi-Stakeholder Forums Promote Balanced Power Relations, Collaboration, and Sustainable Development? A Comparative Analysis of Territorial Planning in Two Very Different Brazilian States
Multistakeholder forums (MSF) have gained global popularity as an innovative institutional reform in the governance of land use decision-making, including territorial planning processes. The idea, or ideal, is to bring together diverse actors to advance the paradigms of “good governance” and “sustainable development”. However, territorial planning through MSF can constitute a double-edged sword. Advancing certain goals, strengthening certain land use rights and benefiting certain actors can come at the expense of others, with the potential to challenge power asymmetries and/or merely reproduce them. My research analyzes the capacities and challenges of MSF to promote balanced power relations, collaboration and a sustainable development, comparatively in two Brazilian states with very different contexts and history; Acre and Mato Grosso. I give a closer look to the state-level “Ecological-Economic Zoning” (ZEE) commissions of Acre and Mato Grosso, and to the implications of MSF and ZEE commissions for indigenous and traditional populations. I do so, acknowledging that power can be used by elites for coercion, but also as a transformative, empowering force for historically marginalized groups. Based on mixed methods, perceptions and empirical evidence are captured applying different data collection instruments to informants of different types, genders, levels and sectors. I conclude that MSF may promote collaboration, balance power relations, empower indigenous peoples and advance sustainable development, but not necessarily. MSF and territorial planning are not technical but rather highly political processes. Particularly, MSF cannot fully represent the inherent diversity of indigenous and traditional populations nor fully ensure their effective participation. MSF have better chances to achieve their goals when they emerge from (and are nourished by) local social movements and shared values, rather than from external demands and institutions in highly polarized contexts. Where sectors are diverse and values are aligned, power differences can become an incentive to collaborate. Moreover, not only economically and/or politically powerful actors but a diversity of actors can influence processes and results (and thus, shape reality), using different forms of power. Finally, MSF do not operate in a vacuum; additional governance mechanisms utilized by different actors deeply shape the power of MSF and equity and effectiveness beyond MSF.
What would attract women to forest-based climate action? Learning from decades of female participation in an infant and maternal health system in Indonesia
Low female participation in community-based forest actions for mitigating and adapting to climate change (i.e., “forest climate actions”) increases gender inequalities and could reduce intervention effectiveness. Factors preventing women’s participation in forestry are well-researched, while factors motivating women’s participation is comparatively lacking. We fill this gap by (i) identifying women’s motivations to participate in communal action in other domains; (ii) analyzing to what extent these motivations exist in forest climate actions; (iii) suggesting how forest climate actions can better motivate women’s participation.
ABCD At A Glance
There are several core principles underlying the ABCD approach. The first principle is that ‘everyone has gifts’, which means that every member in the community has unique skills and talents to contribute to its thriving.