ITTO Tropical Forest Update - Volume 19, No 2

Owning Africa's forests

Alastair Sarre, Eduardo Mansur, Steve Johnson - ITTO

In May 2009, ITTO, the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), and the Cameroon Government combined to host, in Yaoundé, Cameroon, the International Conference on Forest Tenure, Governance and Enterprise: New Opportunities for Central and West Africa. The aim was to catalyze new, wide-ranging actions by governments and civil-society organizations towards securing land and forest tenure in Central and West Africa. This special edition of the tfu reports on the conference: its key messages, discussions, conclusions, and recommendations. All conference presentations and working-group notes are available at www.rightsandresources.org.

Capitalism Meets Common Property

David Barton Bray - Americas Quarterly

In the remote mountain forests of Oaxaca, Mexican Zapotec communities have combined ancestral styles of decision making with modern, eco-conscious forest management.

What the (carbon) market cannot do...

Perspective: Issue No. 1

Alain Karsenty - CIRAD

This is the first issue of CIRAD's new publication - Perspective.

Associated Documents

Ce que le marché (carbone) ne peut faire...
Perspective: Issue No 1
Alain Karsenty - CIRAD

Forest News N°001

Monthly Information Bulletin of the Forest Conservation Programme (FCP) of the Central and West Africa Regional programme of The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN-PACO)

- IUCN

This is the inaugural newsletter from the the Forest Conservation Programme (FCP) of the Central and West Africa Regional programme of The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN-PACO). The newsletter will serve as a regional dialogue tool focused on forestry activity.

infoACICAFOC

July 2009, Issue No 1

- ACICAFOC

This is the inaugural news bulletin from the Coordinating Association of Indigenous and Community Agroforestry in Central America (ACICOFOC).

International Forestry Review

Special Edition: Equity in Community Forestry - Insights from the North and South.

Jeff Campbell, K. Schreckenberg, C.M. Danks, A. Diop, R. Fraser, D. Brighton, M.H. McDermott, C. Luttrell, V.G. Vyamana, M.R. Maharjan, R. Ram Dakal, Suresh K. Thapa, S. Maanty, J. Guernier, Y. Yasmi, A. Lawrence, B. Anglezarke, B. Frost, P. Nolan, R. Owen - Commonwealth Forestry Association, DfiD, RECOFTC - The Center for People and Forests

This is a Special Issue of the International Forestry Review focusing on Equity in Community Forestry - Insights from the North and South.

Allanblackia

July 2009

- World Agroforestry Centre - West and Central Africa Region

World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)- Bilingual Monthly Newsletter- ICRAF/West and Central Africa Region, July 2009 Edition

Chinese Collective Forestlands: Contributions and Constraints

Guangping Miao, Anders West

This paper describes the key policy and institutional dimensions of China's collective forests and how collective forest property rights are defined by the law.

Convergence of food, fuel and fibre markets: driving change in the world’s forests

Don Roberts, Andy White, Sten Nilsson - CIBC World Markets Inc., Rights and Resources, IIASA

Don Roberts, Andy White and Sten Nilsson set out the main factors responsible for the growing pressure on land, and forests in particular.

Aborvitae 36: Rights-based approaches to forest conservation

Gill Shepherd, Liz Alden Wily, Eugenia Ponce de Leon, Annalisa Savaresi Hartmann, Janis Bristol Alcorn, Bob Fisher, Gonzalo Oveido, Madhu Sarin, Arturo Santos, Julian Orozco, Evelyn Chaves, Marcus Colchester, Augusta Molnar, Andy White, Arvind Khare, William Sunderlin, Nii Ashie Kotey, Paulo de Tarso de Lara Pires, Thomas Greiber - IUCN

The debate on rights-based approaches to conservation is occurring at a time when conservation thinking is being profoundly challenged. The need for conservation to recognize the rights of those people who are most impacted by global conservation initiatives makes rights-based thinking not only a question of ethics and social justice, but also a practical imperative for saving species and ecosystems.

Forest restoration, rights and power: what’s going wrong in the ngitili forests of Shinyanga?
Gill Shepherd looks at a sobering case of how forest restoration has helped spark the erosion of rights of the poor.

Liberia’s Community Forest Rights Law: what will it look like?
Liz Alden Wily gives a preview of Liberia’s new legal instrument for reinstating community rights in the forest sector.

Colombia’s new forest law rejected
Eugenia Ponce de León reflects on a successful legal challenge to a forest law that neglected community rights.

Human rights and forest conservation: what does the law say?
Annalisa Savaresi Hartmann looks at some legal aspects of the rights-conservation nexus.

Why forest conservation is not good news for local communities
Janis Bristol Alcorn takes a critical look at what forest conservation has done for local people’s rights.

Rights-based approaches to forest conservation
Bob Fisher and Gonzalo Oviedo look at some of the issues and contradictions behind the concepts of rights in a forest conservation context.

Righting the wrongs done to India’s forest dwellers
Madhu Sarin discusses how a new law is reversing some of the injustices of forest management in India.

Guatemala: indigenous management of a protected area
Arturo Santos and Julian Orozco outline how a protected area project involved a radical rethink of the role of local indigenous people in conservation.

When rights don’t count: obstacles to community forestry in Central America
Evelyn Chaves looks at some of the barriers to communities exercising their forest rights.

Indonesia: putting rights into forest conservation
Marcus Colchester reviews the challenges of securing community forest rights in Indonesia

From hinterland to centre stage: forests, people and rights
Augusta Molnar, Andy White, Arvind Khare and William Sunderlin reflect on the importance of rights and governance as pressure grows on the world’s forests.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation: the need for a rights-based approach
Nii Ashie Kotey, Paulo de Tarso de Lara Pires, and Thomas Greiber reflect on the reasoning behind a rights-based approach to REDD.

Associated Documents

Arborvitae 36: Les approches à la conservation forestière basées sur les droits

- IUCN

Arborvitae 36: La conservación forestal con un enfoque de derechos

- IUCN

Locals' Exclusion from Concession Deal Worrisome

- The Analyst

Head of Green Advocates, Alfred Brownell warns that "continuous exclusion" of communities and forest-dwellers from concession deals made by the national government is a serious threat.

The Trouble with Tenure Security in Laos

Keith Barney - TERRA

The extension of land reform and titling programs into upland zones is currently being debated in Lao PDR. However, these reforms are advancing a version of tenure security that promotes market-oriented forestry development and legitimates neoliberal approaches to poverty alleviation.

This paper examines the contradictions at the heart of the "tenure security" discourse, drawing on the example of a village in central Laos. New land reform policies in Laos, implemented in concert with swidden reduction policies and large-scale investments in the natural resource sector are leaving to further insecurity and impoverishment of local communities.

Conserving What and for Whom? Why Conservation Should Help Meet Basic Human Needs in the Tropics

David Kaimowitz, Douglas Sheil

For hundreds of millions of people, biodiversity is about eating, staying healthy, and finding shelter. Meeting these people’s basic needs should receive greater priority in the conservation agenda.

Wild and semi-wild plants and animals contribute significantly to nutrition, health care, income, and culture in developing countries, and the poorest and most vulnerable people often rely on those resources most. Depleting those resources or making them inaccessible can impoverish these people even further. ‘Pro-poor conservation’—that is, conservation that aims to support poor people—explicitly seeks to address basic human needs.

Understanding the Chinese Forest Market and Its Global Implications

Xu Jintao, Andy White

Introduction from the special edition of the IFR on forestry in China