Communities Forests and Governance – Hemant R. Ojha, Netra P. Timsina, others

Communities Forests and Governance – Hemant R. Ojha, Netra P. Timsina, Others | This fascinating book compares outcomes from six types of donor-supported government / civil society partnership arrangements in forest management or conservation: community forestry, collaborative forest management, leasehold forestry, watershed management, buffer-zone forestry, and integrated conservation and development.
There is enough experience from them all to draw conclusions about the most valuable and durable arrangements and institutions born from these interventions, and those that offer the most sustainable support to livelihoods and biodiversity. The comparison also yields interesting insights into differences in outcomes between forestry-focussed and conservation-focussed interventions.
The book deserves a wide readership and will perhaps be of especial value to those planning ecosystem approaches to conservation.
– Dr Gill Shepherd, IUCN
This publication continues the tradition of Nepali academic-practitioners actively and fearlessly participating in the policy-practice dialogue which has been evident for several decades. The book addresses the underlying power relationships associated with governance of natural resources in the country under the different modalities that have been experimented in the recent past. These issues are critical to understanding the successes and failures of participatory resource management, particularly forest management, in contemporary Nepal, and the authors pull no punches in their analysis. Nepal continues to be a world leader in this area, and this book will ensure that this leadership will continue.
– Dr Don Glimour, Author of the book ?Villagers, Forests and Foresters?
This book provides a timely update on community forestry in a country that has been a global leader in this sphere and has also recently experienced dramatic political changes. Three aspects of the book are particularly noteworthy. One is the emphasis on participatory approaches in the resource-rich terai (a relatively new phenomenon). The second and third revolve around the issue of power. The book deals very thoroughly with the marginalization of some social groups/categories in these programs, despite many efforts to strengthen equity; and it also addresses the ways government and donors have influenced events in interaction with the less powerful communities. It will make a good read for anyone interested in South Asia, community forestry, and/or the impacts of governance and power relations on conservation and development. – Dr Carol J Pierce Colfer, Principal Scientist, Center for International Forestry