Key characteristics of successful community forestry efforts

Since the early 1980s, many projects and programmes have been based on the objectives and strategies of community forestry. Forestry agencies in many developing countries have adopted community forestry approaches and gained experience in community management of forest resources.

Several characteristics of successful community forestry have been identified (Gregersen, Draper and Elz, 1989; Hoskins, 1991; Perl et al., 1991; Arnold in FAO, 1992; Wells, Brandon and Hannah, 1992). Five of these appear to be critical to success (Henderson and Krahl, 1994).

The first is a willingness by forestry professionals and forestry agencies to enter into partnerships with local people to respond effectively to their needs. This requires establishing and maintaining effective communication between foresters and forestry agencies and local people. It places foresters and forestry agencies in the role of listener and service provider to local communities, rather than that of expert and decision-maker.

The second characteristic is a change in the internal culture of forestry agencies, reflecting a shift from a focus on trees to a focus on people - to enable forestry agencies to understand what people want and to work in partnership with them to help them achieve their objectives.

The third characteristic is a shift from centralized, line-command agency man-agement to decentralized management and the sharing of decision-making responsibility with local forest users and local communities.

The fourth critical characteristic is the reorientation of technologies to focus the benefits from forest management on local communities in ways that are desired and supported by these communities. This characteristic also often results in manag-ing forest resources for products other than timber.

The final critical characteristic is cooperation and coordination with community-based organizations that re-present local constituencies and interests. Many of the development components of community forestry may be better managed by NGOs based in the communities.

Many aspects of these characteristics mirror successful extension programming in which effectiveness results from good communication and a service orientation rather than insistence on the "technically optimal solution" (of course, from the point of view of the government agency). Not all of these five characteristics are present in every successful community forestry programme. But successful programmes have at least focused on people, reoriented land management technologies and cooperated and coordinated with community-based NGOs.