There is no other way to conserve and sustain all categories of forests of the Asia Pacific region than to carry out complete devolution to the village/users level which we refer in this paper as 'Forest Reform'. The objective of the reform is not moral namely to right a wrong that the government of all countries have done in the past to the traditional users by centralising forest authority. On the contrary, the reform is to establish a new paradigm based on the premises that the forest benefits should rightfully go to the people who live in the forest vicinity now, whether they are traditional users, old or new migrants. This change over will need political will, policy change, legislation and sincere implementation. Given the earnestness, the international organisation, the local activists, and the government can, by acting in unison, bring about the Reform.
This process of devolution has to be done by linking villages to specific forest blocks which the villagers use for the sustenance and oftentimes are dependent for economic living. Thus, the present day large forest blocks will be divided up into small sections each being managed by a village committee composed of all the families in the village. Where necessary, the villagers would be advised to make unified plan for economic and ecological sustainability. The change to such a scenario will have to be done by a temporarily erected new agency for forest reform, comprising of survey department, land reforms department, forest department, administrative department and social activists. The role of the forest department in the future will be to provide the support to prepare management plans, to demarcate the forest of different village units and to provide technical and extension assistance. The time period for the reform will vary from country to country but should have a cut-off date.
The immediate effect of such a change will be a drop in production, less revenue for the government, decentralised non mechanised operation, and other such manifestations. These will be temporary as the villagers will learn to appropriately utilise the services of the technical forests, genuine contractors and proper book keeping. The permanent change will be that the forest will now be properly supervised by a host of people who will have a stake in the forests, corruption by outsiders will be resisted, more local employment generated and better equity will prevail upon the villagers. The government will also regain its revenue loss by imposing taxes on the village which will now operate the forest for economic gain.
In order to kick-start the whole process of forest reform, a forest reform convention sponsored by FAO and other donors involving all the Asia Pacific countries is a prerequisite. It is also imperative that to support the convention theme, the FAO, UNDP and others together bring out a publication recording authentic (and not anecdotal) data about the superiority of the peoples' forest management over the so called scientific forest management and to clarify the positive role that devolution can play in forestry.
