FAO governing and advisory bodies have often stressed the importance of the socioeconomic aspects of mountain watershed management. They have asked the Organization to draw up guidelines on enlisting the participation of local people in watershed management programmes. We are all aware of the need for approaches ensuring sustained yield of natural resources, stabilizing rural population in line with the carrying capacity of the environment, and, most important, enlisting rural people's participation in the planning, execution and benefits of programmes to conserve, restore and make proper use of mountain ecosystems primarily suited for forestry.
This FAO technical paper is one more in the series "Soil Conservation Manuals" offering methodological indications, concrete examples and monographs on soil conservation and protection and focusing on approaches and techniques useful in the developing countries. We particularly wish to thank Mr. J. Bochet who has condensed into simple, practical words his vast experience in how rural mountain communities can participate actively in the planning and execution of programmes to develop or conserve natural renewable resources. The final text now in publication is the result of a lengthy, fruitful dialogue between the main author and an interdisciplinary working party with people from the Forestry Department, the Agriculture Department and the Social and Economic Policy Department of FAO. It was coordinated by Mr. S. Botero of the Division of Forest Resources and offers orientation in accordance with FAO policy guidelines on how to add a human dimension to technical, administrative or planning responsibilities and functions, and how to help enlist the active participation of rural mountain communities in designing and carrying out programmes to conserve and develop natural renewable resources. We are confident that the ideas put forth in this handbook can stimulate new approaches to ways of establishing lasting collaboration with those people most directly affected by mountain watershed management programmes.
J. Prate Llauradó
Director
Forest Resources Division
Department of Forestry
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of mountain communities in the design and implementation of watershed management programmes, in short, their moral commitment to and physical and material participation in these programmes. Part one analyses the problem and its effect on various socio-economic groups. Part two looks at the administrative structures and legal regulations for intervention, socioeconomic data gathering and analysis, planning and programming. Part three deals with implementation: the role of the community and methods to be used.
