governance

Quarterly socioeconomic data from 240 households are used to study the links between forest-related income and rural livelihoods in southern China. Results show average forest-related income shares of 31.5%, which was predominantly derived from cultivated non-timber sources. Forest-related income was important to households at all income levels, although lower income households were more dependent due […]

By Barbara Fraser LIMA, Peru — Legislation aimed at giving Bolivia’s Indigenous communities the right to extract resources from their forests has solidified land tenure, but conflicts with long-standing forest-management practices, according to a study of the Yuracaré people. Under land and forest reforms passed in 1996, the Yuracaré, who live in the Amazon Basin […]

An essential task of participatory action research is to help close the policy implementation gap that leads to large discrepancies between policy frameworks and local practices. Too often, official regulations, laws and decrees fail to translate into concrete action on the ground. Loose institutional linkages between research, extension and local communities are often blamed as […]

Nobel winner Wangari Maathai namesake forestry award deadline looms By Julie Mollins CIFOR — Kenyan-born Wangari Maathai dedicated the better part of her life to environmental conservation, planting trees and promoting equal rights for women — efforts that won her a Nobel Peace Prize “for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”. Not only […]

By Mary Menton and Peter Cronkleton, Center for International Forestry Research, originally published on the Landscapes for Food, People and Nature Blog. In recent decades, Peru has experimented with policy reforms to promote more sustainable forest management. At the same time, donors and NGOs have introduced community forestry initiatives that have tried to encourage rural […]

Watch this short video supported by the Elenor Ostrom Award to learn more about ecological security and adaptation to change.