Forests for the Future: Local Strategies for Forest Protection, Economic Welfare and Social Justice

Aimed at policy-makers and practitioners, this work looks at how local and indigenous communities can maintain the balance between their societies and their forest environments when faced with increasing external pressures, rising populations and growing demands for basic needs and cash. While efforts by governments or coporations to restore and manage forest environments are often non-existent or ineffective, there frequently exists, within communities who depend on forests, a wealth of knowledge about rational land use and environmental protection. The case studies in this volume come from all around the world, including tropical, temperate and boreal zones. They come from local groups involved in alternative, local citizens initiatives to sustain the forest and to adapt local management systems to changing circustances. They present their experiences and recommendations on how to re-establish community control over forest lands and preserve them for the future.

Table of Contents:
People, politics and forest management - an ethnobotanical perspective, Madhu Ramnath; bringing the forest to the village - the creation of Chakrashila wildlife sanctuary in Assam; saving the western ghats -blueprint solutions versus villagers' rights and responsibilities; local forest management of the frontier - indigenous communities restore their forest in the Cordillera mountains; alternatives to rainforest logging in a Chachi community in Ecuador; protecting the last primeval forests of Paraguay - the Cordillera del Yvytyrusu rights in Brazil; "washing hands with soil" - restoring forest and land in Costa Rica; between logging and conservation - traditional management practices in the Cameroon rainforest; the challenge of conservation in Kahuzi-Biega national park; forest, water and people -in search of a new symbiosis for Boti Falls Forest; forests for the future - an indigenous, integrated approach to managing temperate watershed resources in Oregon, Deborah Moore; working with the woods -restoring forest and community in New Brunswick; Canadian hunters' fight for the forest - the Algonquins striving for territory and good management, Boyce Richardson, Russel Diabo; finding common ground -adapting forest management in Krakow to the pressures of modernity; revitalising local forest management in the Netherlands - the woodlot owners association in Stamproy; tigers, mushrooms and bonanzas in the Russian far east - the Udege's campaign for economic survival and conservation, Jenne de Beer, Andrej Zakharankov.

Review :
'Any time you hear someone say there are 'no alternatives' to centralized state control of sensitive forest areas, reach for this book. Providing the sort of perspective that can come only from those closely engaged in the tough realities of local forest struggles, it both informs and inspires' - Larry Lohmann, author of 'Pulping the South'