0656-B4
Ajit K. Krishnaswamy 1
Forest communities throughout the United States of America are becoming increasingly impoverished, both economically and socially, as natural resources near these communities have been managed with inadequate consideration for resource sustainability and community well-being. Forest communities live near forests, but are often ignored in the decisions that affect them. The early 1990s saw the rapid growth of community forestry as a reaction to this situation. Community forestry in the USA is broadly defined as efforts by people - united by place or interest - to use and conserve their local forest resource to their advantage. Several institutions have emerged to support community forestry in the USA. An example is the National Community Forestry Center (NCFC) that was established on the premise that local communities' capacity to contribute to forest management and policy is limited by their lack of access to information and research, and that local knowledge is the key to better forest management. The NCFC is probably the only organized effort in the USA specifically aimed at building the capacity of forest-based communities to produce and use information - so that they can effectively participate in decisions that affect their lives. The NCFC is a decentralized network of four regional centers located in the Southwest, Southeast, Northeast and Pacific West regions. Bioregional advisory councils (BACs) representing diverse citizen interests guide the work of each regional center. The NCFC regional centers adopt three strategies to support forest communities. First, each center works collaboratively with two to five target communities every year to build their capacity to conduct research. Regional centers use participatory research in their work with target communities. Second, regional center researchers conduct research on topics relevant to communities in the region. Third, regional centers provide technical assistance and training to communities. NCFC researchers have found that shared ownership of research has resulted in communities using information effectively to their advantage - and becoming more active and informed land stewards.
Thousands of forest communities in the United States - in the coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest, in Native American reservations, in the woods on the Mississippi Delta, in towns in the midst of Maine's corporate plantations, and in and around the nation's forests - are becoming increasingly impoverished, both socially and economically (National Network of Forest Practitioners 1999). In the past, natural resources surrounding these forest communities have been managed with inadequate consideration for resource sustainability and community well being (Poffenberger and Selin 1998).
Forest managers attempting to develop sustainable resource management strategies generally overlook the reciprocal relationship between forest degradation and community impoverishment. This oversight limits the likelihood of sustainable resource management, because sustainability requires the engagement of rural people whose knowledge, perspective, and experience can inform science, management, and policy (Chambers 1983, Arnold 1992).
Forest communities live near forests, but are often ignored regarding decisions that affect them. Their capacity to contribute to resource management and policy is limited by their lack of access to information, and is exacerbated by the assumption that rural residents have little to offer. Shut out of decision-making processes, and lacking an institutional mechanism for accessing and developing information pertinent to their needs, rural people in forested areas are often overlooked though being essential to sustainable management and stewardship partnerships (National Network of Forest Practitioners 1999).
The crisis in forest communities peaked and became very visible in the early nineties when communities, especially in the Pacific Northwest, were affected by industrial restructuring, resource degradation, environmental litigation, and changing federal agency priorities for forest management - with communities having little or no say in the policies. These changes caused widespread economic distress in many forest communities throughout the Pacific Northwest due to loss of jobs. Between 1989 and 1996, the closure of 273 western sawmill and veneer plants resulted in the elimination of 22,578 jobs (Poffenberger and Selin 1998).
The early and mid-nineties saw the rapid growth of local community efforts in the Pacific Northwest as a reaction to this situation. In other parts of the country, and during the same period of time, several non-profit organizations were engaged in organizing, training, and providing technical assistance to forest communities and forestland owners (Brendler and Carey 1998, Poffenberger and Selin 1998). At that point in time, the term community forestry was rarely used in association with local community efforts and the forestry programs of non-profit organizations - the general sense was that community forestry was only relevant to developing world situations (Carey 2001).
The term community forestry gained popularity in the USA as people who had worked abroad -usually in international programs supporting community forestry in Asia and Africa in the early eighties - realized that though the context was different, the issues in community forestry were common in the USA and abroad. The common issues were: forest communities were ignored regarding decisions that affect them, and that resource sustainability is best ensured if local communities participate in management decisions. The Ford Foundation, one of the major supporters of community forestry internationally, extended their support for community forestry efforts in the USA.
However, the concept of community forestry in the USA evolved to be broader than the place-based focus in other countries (see box on Diversity of Community Forestry in the USA). Community forestry in the USA is broadly defined as efforts by people - united by place or interest - to use and conserve their local forest resource to their advantage (Brendler and Carey 1998, National Community Forestry Center Northern Forest Region 2000). Community forestry in the USA is, at least in part, a response to the rigidity and inequity of traditional scientific forest management.
Several institutions have emerged to support community forestry in the USA. A prominent example is the National Community Forestry Center (NCFC). The NCFC is a project of the National Network of Forest Practitioners (NNFP), a non-profit national forum of groups and individuals involved in community forestry. The NNFP has been instrumental in increasing the visibility of community forestry in the USA. The NNFP received a four-year federal government grant in 2000 to develop the NCFC to support community-based research in rural communities with forestland.
The NCFC is an innovative project aimed at building the capacity of rural, forest-based communities to produce and use information about natural resource use and conservation. It is established on the premise that local knowledge is the key to better forest management. The NCFC is a direct effort at bringing people into projects, where local people themselves lead and develop what they need. The NCFC is probably the only organized effort in the USA that is geared specifically towards developing the capacity of communities to engage in their own land stewardship.
The NCFC is a decentralized network of four regional centers in Appalachia, the Northeast, the Pacific West, and the Southwest.
The regional centers work collaboratively and intensively with local communities on significant issues at the local or regional level. The regional centers work across a wide range of issues associated with community forestry, and related to the management of both public and private forestlands across the USA.
Bioregional advisory councils (BACs) representing diverse citizen interests guide the work of each regional center. BAC involvement guides regional center functioning. BAC functioning determines whether regional center activities are participatory, grassroots and effective.
The Centers have developed effective, strong, and representative BACs to help them set research priorities, and select partner communities. The Centers try to make their ACs diverse.. In order to maintain a balance between advocates, policy people, experts and researchers on one hand and practitioners on the other, as a guideline that at least half of the BAC membership are expected to represent rural communities of place or be working class residents.
Regional centers adopt three strategies to support forest communities.
Using participatory research methods, each regional center works collaboratively and intensively in partnership with 2-5 target communities every year to build their capacity to conduct research. In each partner community, the regional centers support one or more community representatives known as "local cooperators" to carry out research on community forestry issues identified by the communities themselves. The BACs guide the selection of partner communities.
Participatory Research Participatory research (PR) is the core of the NCFC's work with partner communities. This research method is based on the idea that people's knowledge, information, experiences and perspectives are an extremely important part of its ability to solve its problems, and presents people as researchers in pursuit of answers to questions encountered in daily life (Tandon 1988). PR counters the traditional dependence on specialists and external experts to assess people's needs - it is research of the people, by the people and for the people (Freire 1973, Park 1997). PR differs from conventional research in a number of key areas including: who initiates and controls the research; how the research question is defined; how and by whom research is conducted; how and by whom results are interpreted; and in the ways in which research results are used (National Community Forestry Center Northern Forest Region 2001). Development practitioners around the world have been using participatory approaches for creative rural development using labels such as participatory learning and action, participatory rural appraisal, participatory monitoring and evaluation - but these are all driven by the democratic aims of PR (Williams 1998). In the field of forestry, the growing interest in PR is due to increased awareness of the reciprocal relationship between forest health and community well being. PR helps achieve community well being through engaging the community in helping solve their problems. The recent growth of community forestry in the USA has created space for the use of PR to build the capacity of communities for informed and effective participation in forest management. |
Examples of NCFC's participatory research with target communities
The Northern Center partnered the Starksboro Conservation Commission, Vermont to develop local indicators of forest health in order to inform local decision-making. The Starksboro Conservation Commission and the community's Planning Commission unveiled a list of forest indicators identified through the research at a community meeting. As a result of this research the Northern Center is working with the target community on the design of a new workshop titled "Giving the Forest A Voice in Community Planning: Creating Local Indicators of Forest Health"
The Southwest Center partnered the Las Humanas Cooperative, located at Manzano in central New Mexico, to help it complete its research plan to monitor ecological and social effects of forest restoration work in the Manzano Mountain area. As a part of this project, two youth will work with Center staff to map the distribution of national fire plan projects in relation to traditional use areas and community wealth.
The Pacific West Center established a partnership with the Salinas, California based CIDERS (Centro Internacional para el Desarollo Sustentable) to help build the capacity of Latino forest worker communities through establishing the Latino Leadership Group. The Latino Leadership Group is creating the kind of regional community forestry network in the Spanish-speaking community that has been so important to the English-speaking community forestry movement in the USA. Latino forest communities have barely been involved in research and policy in community forestry.
The Appalachian Center partnered the Craig County Rural Partnership (CCRP), New Castle, Virginia, which started a Wild Harvest Sector Program to provide educational programs on wild harvesting of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Through workshops, CCRP and the Center will promote ways to plant and harvest non-timber forest products, as well as using best management practices to keep small businesses profitable. The goal is to develop a market for non-timber forest products, and encourage business and job development at the local level.
Regional center researchers conduct research identified by the bioregional advisory councils on topics relevant to communities in the region.
Examples of research conducted by regional center researchers
The Northern Center conducted a Land Ownership and Management Study that provided an overview of how forestland ownership is changing in the Northern Forest, and described the impact of ownership changes on local communities, and discussed what some communities are doing to manage change so as to maximize both economic and environmental benefits.
The Southwest Center worked with the Zuni Pueblo and Las Humanas Cooperative to develop Ecological Monitoring Protocols for forestry projects that recently received grants from the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program, a program under the National Fire Plan of the US Forest Service. Center researchers worked with four community restoration projects - training 25 youth and 7 community members in monitoring methods.
The Pacific West Center has been involved in identifying Rural Environmental Justice Issues through a review of policies and the legal framework for environmental justice. This includes compiling a database of rural environmental justice issues. Activities have included library and Internet research of financial, educational, and technical resources for environmental justice groups.
Regional centers function as a resource for communities in the region. They are a clearinghouse of information on community forestry and provide technical assistance to communities. This is done in a variety of ways including: a toll free telephone number, listservs, websites, databases listing technical assistance providers, newsletters, and publications on relevant research. Regional center staffs are available to provide information and referrals. Regional centers also conduct workshops, training, and meetings with community groups.
Example of a center as a regional resource
The Northern Region organized several workshops on participatory research throughout the country. The purpose of the participatory research workshops was to help rural people conduct and use research to make informed decisions about forest resources. The highly interactive four-hour workshops, were intended for a mix of community members and professional researchers, and explore the value of a participatory research approach to community problem solving
Currently, the regional centers are focusing on different research themes identified with the help of their BACs. The themes that the Northern Center is focusing on includes: the use and marketing of "opportunity wood" (the term they prefer to use for "low-value wood") to benefit communities and landowners, the impact on employment from changes in land ownership, and making available databases on legislative initiatives, research, and demonstration forests to communities and its partners. The Southwest Center research themes include: marketing of small diameter wood, opportunities for communities provided by the national fire plan, and monitoring ecological restoration projects (with emphasis on youth involvement). The Pacific West Center research themes include: environmental justice issues (especially issues concerning mobile forest workers - such as the Latino floral green workers, and Southeast Asian mushroom harvesters), and the use of traditional ecological knowledge. The Appalachian Center staff has identified worker issues arising from the harvesting of non-timber forest products to be a potential research theme. One topical example is conflicts involving migrant Latino mushroom harvesters on public lands in North Carolina.
NCFC researchers have found that communities want to participate in research. Shared ownership of research has resulted in communities using information effectively to their advantage - and becoming more active and informed land stewards. Regional center researchers initially expected that research would be hard for rural communities to get involved with. They have been surprised that this has not been the case. Often, it has been natural and exciting for communities to participate in the research process.
Communities know the questions that are important to them, and are constantly looking for answers. They initially need help and facilitation in getting the answers. The regional centers have been able to create the space for the communities to get answers, and once they do it, they are excited about their capacity to solve resource related problems. The communities that the NCFC regional centers have partnered have learned to ask and answer questions about the type of information needed to make decisions that will allow a stronger stream of sustainable benefits back from the forest to the community.
NCFC activities have resulted in new learnings - learning about bringing together people who are trained researchers with people from rural communities who are not trained researchers, and who have traditionally been the object of research - usually without a voice. These people are now directly engaged in the learning process - and they have become more active in land stewardship.
Interacting with the diverse groups engaged in the research process has been a valuable learning experience. One regional center advisory council member said "I was excited because it was the one place in forestry in America where I saw the confluence of different people across various sectors - I saw workers, I saw landowners, I saw professionals, as well as academics sit down together to solve a problem relevant to community needs".
There is broad support for the type of capacity-building work the NCFC has been doing over the past two years amongst communities; and government agencies at the state, regional and federal level who are aware of the participatory and grassroots strategies used by the regional centers. They feel that the NCFC has played an important role in building the capacity of community forestry practitioners -thus promoting the mutual well being of forests and communities through research and outreach.
However, the NCFC faces several challenges. One important challenge is working with migrant forest worker and Latino brush harvester communities. Building trust, identifying leadership, and organizing within these communities for participatory research has been difficult and time consuming. This is due to a long history of distrust and fear sustained by these communities. A discussion has emerged amongst NCFC researchers about the balance between organizing and participatory research when working with communities such as these. Some Native American communities the Centers are currently partnering with are also historically distrustful of external researchers - especially concerning the dissemination of traditional knowledge outside their community.
An operating challenge the NCFC faces is ensuring that the work of the centers is driven by community needs and concerns. Another challenge is building awareness of the NCFC's work amongst academic researchers and co-opting the mainstream forestry research community in the participatory and grassroots approaches adopted by NCFC researchers. NCFC researchers, who all work for non-profits, have had little or no direct institutional links with academic researchers. The NCFC also faces the challenge of incorporating knowledge and experience in participatory research and community forestry from countries that have a longer history in these areas. Currently there is little information flow between community forestry practitioners and researchers in the USA and abroad.
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1 Director, National Community Forestry Center, National Network of Forest Practitioners, 305 South Main Street, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. [email protected]; Website: www.nnfp.org.