Community Forestry Networks and Federations in Asia and Their Role in Democratizing Forest Governance

Since the 1990s, there has been an increasing interest, worldwide, in the potential of community forestry systems and related models of local forest management to contribute to efficient service provision, environmental stability, and poverty reduction. This trend is reflected in the policy shifts in around sixty countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that have supported some degree of devolution of forest management to a diverse range of stakeholders: local governments and line agencies; grassroots forest user groups; individual households, and even NGOs. As an increasing number of communities were legally entrusted the rights to manage local level natural resources, they have also expanded their actions beyond local level resource management; they have begun to organize themselves as networks and federations, primarily to articulate their voice and concerns at higher scales of governance and decision-making. These networks and federations however vary greatly between countries, regions and locations, and also in terms of the issues and agendas they pursue. Despite such proliferation of community forestry networks in practice, there is limited understanding in the policy domain and academics about these networks. This paper presents the existing status of community forestry networks and federations in the Asian region based primarily on the past experiences and researches conducted by the authors. This is a background paper presented in the workshop "Strengthening CF Networks and Federations in Asia" jointly organized by Global Alliance of Community Forestry (GACF), Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal (FECOFUN), and The Centre for People and Forests (RECOFTC) and funded by Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI).