Suchergebnisse

If power relations are not recognized as a problem, even new multidisciplinary approaches to environmental management can end up as simply more sophisticated versions of Western regimes of knowledge and power - and will rarely achieve their stated objective. (DSE/DÜI)

Community management of forests for timber extraction has been widely implemented in Mexico. In this article, we investigate the relationship between property rights, community forestry, and deforestation over time. We conduct an econometric analysis of land use change at the municipality level in eight Mexican states that incorporates several variables commonly used in deforestation models plus variables on common property and community forestry. Our results show that both key explanatory variables, common property and community forestry, are related to lower deforestation. Coniferous forests, which have more marketable timber, show a stronger association, indicating that common property management may work by increasing the market value of the standing forest, thus building local consensus for timber management by distributing returns. The measured effects of common property and community forestry on deforestation rates are both statistically significant and large enough to confirm community forestry's usefulness as an environmental policy tool.

Abstract Community Forestry in Nepal is based on the realm of a decentralized participatory forest management approach. While this approach has a well documented history in addressing socio-economic, governance and environmental issues, the range of challenges still persist in livelihood and equity, governance and socio-ecological aspects. These issues are not only important for community forest user groups, but are equally related to multi-stakeholders, ranging from micro to macro-levels that need to be addressed for the advancement of community forestry in the future. This research, therefore, attempts to assist this process, by concentrating study in forest governance issues from micro to macro-levels, including various stakeholders. The overall aim of this study has been to explore and analyze the effectiveness of community forestry governance in Nepal. This research explores and analyses community forestry governance on two levels: a) at the level of community forest user groups, who are the primary users and managers of community forests; and b) the examination of higher-level stakeholders, including policy makers and service providers for community forestry programmes at national-level. At user group level, research was based on case study approach and the data were collected from three community forest user groups in the western-region of Nepal: Gijara, Shreejana and Bavanpurwa. Household survey interviews, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, participatory observation and workshops were the most commonly applied methods of data collection at the user group level. At the higher stakeholders' level, interviews were carried out with forestry experts working in governmental and non-governmental organizations and with donors working for, and supporting, community forestry programmes. In order to draw a theoretical framework, theories and practices of forest governance, decentralization, institutions and property-right regimes were extensively reviewed. At the user group level, the socio-ecological ...

Gender mainstreaming in forestry and forest conservation has become a prominent strategy to address the challenges and obstacles indigenous and campesina women face in terms of equitable inclusion in community forest governance. Drawing upon feminist and poststructuralist political ecology, this article examines how this strategy, expressed through community forestry and forest conservation interventions, directs indigenous and campesina women to conduct themselves in a particular manner to transform themselves into "productive and entrepreneurial" subjects. Based on interviews and ethnographic research methods conducted in the Southern Sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico, the article illustrates how biopolitical and colonial techniques of government are articulated within these gender equity projects and the everyday practices they encourage. In developing this analysis, the article demonstrates how gender, racial/ethnic and class categorizations intersect in fostering or abandoning specific bodies and populations as well as regulating the work in, use of, and access to forests. Based on this discussion, the article questions whether gender mainstreaming in community forestry is becoming yet another attempt to remotely control the interactions between gendered and racialized human populations and nonhuman nature via a technical "toolkit" of neoliberal environmentality. ; published version ; peerReviewed