This link was published on 26 June 2012

Communities are not companies: New approach needed for community managed forests

CIFOR highlighted the need for a new approach to enabling smallholder and community-managed forests to achieve certification in a side event organised by FSC at the RIO+20 Conference. They used an example in Bolivia where cases of theft were reported among the members. CIFOR believe that one of the reasons for this is due to insecurity as a result of formalising property rights which have cut some community members off from their traditional harvesting area. Additionally, the requirement to rotate no-take zones could lead to conflict within the community. CIFOR is in the process of collaboratively developing a new paradigm for smallholder and community forest management which will take into account the differing uses community members have for the forest and acknowledge that collective decision-making in a community may not be feasible.

  • CIFOR blog
  • FSC
  • CIFOR
  • Forest management
  • Forest community
  • Rio 20+