Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Toolbox

Forest Governance

This module covers the basic elements and components of forest governance and explores the ways in which governance affects the implementation of sustainable forest management (SFM). The module addresses why it is important for forest managers to know about forest governance and provides guidance on what they can do to enable good forest governance.

Agarawal, B. 2009. Gender and forest conservation: the impact of women’s participation in community forest governance. Ecological Economics, 68(11): 2785–2799.

Arts, B. 2014. Assessing forest governance from a ‘Triple G’ perspective: government, governance, governmentality. Forest Policy and Economics, 49: 17–22.

Dhital, N., Vololomboahangy, R.R. & Khasa, D.P. 2015. Issues and challenges of forest governance in Madagascar. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du développement, 36(1): 38–56. 

Downs, F. 2013. Rule of law and environmental justice in the forests: the challenge of strong law enforcement in corrupt conditions. Anti-Corruption Resource Centre.

FAO. 2005. Best practices for improving law compliance in the forest sector. Rome.

Hewitt, D. 2013. Potential legality issues from forest conversion timber. Washington, DC, Forest Trends.  

Rametsteiner, E. & Simula, M. 2003. Forest certification: an instrument to promote sustainable forest management? Journal of Environmental Management, 67: 87–98.

Rametsteiner, E. 2009. Governance concepts and their application in forest policy initiatives from global to local levels. Small-scale Forestry, 8(2): 143–158.

van Bodegom, A.J., Wigboldus, S., Blundell, A.G., Harwell, E.E. & Savenije, H. 2012. Strengthening effective forest governance monitoring practice: an approach for integrating forest governance into national forest-related monitoring systems. Rome, FAO.