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.

Sorious Samura introduces a video explaining the importance of the EU's Action Plan to improve the way forests are owned and managed and ensure that timber imported into the EU is legal.
This is a short video to showcase the key achievements, challenges and recommendations around the Forest Governance Forums. The video is based on the final forest governance forum in Cameroon in 2014 and includes a number of interviews with stakeholders form the community, government, civil society and the private sector....
Combating illegal logging and poor forest governance has become a global priority spearheaded by the EU FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) Action Plan. This film highlights the activities of the Strengthening African Forest Governance project. It also focuses on the importance of working with multiple stakeholders to build effective...
The video presents a story of good governance as result of the decision to give lands to local communities in the late 70s. The project allowed communities to restore barren lands and to bring back the forest. This also allowed the forests to regain their central role in ...
Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG) in partnership with MJUMITA have been implementing a three years project (2011-2013) that aimed at promoting improved governance and increased accountability in the Tanzania's forestry sector. Are there any improvements? What governance gaps still exist and need to be filled? This video presents the projects...
It’s time to see the forest for the trees. Indigenous women play a huge role in forest governance and policymakers should seek their opinions to participate in forest management. USAID empowers these women from Thailand to Cambodia so they can gain the skills necessary to be effective leaders in preserving...
The relationship between state and non-state actors has been the subject of extensive debate within the governance literature. During this time two influential but very different accounts of governance have emerged: a society-centred account which talks of governance without government and a statecentric perspective which maintains that governance largely occurs...
The decentralization of forest resource management authority to local governments has resulted in a situation in which district governments are neither accountable upward to the central government nor downward to the local people. The decentralization of authority without appropriate devolution processes or control mechanisms has resulted in the decentralization of opportunistic...
Much has been written about a supposed shift ‘from government to governance’ in many policy areas, including forest policy. However, the idea remains very much at the level of hypothesis as few empirical studies have confirmed the transition. Part of the problem is the multi-dimensional character of governance itself, which...
The role and capacity of the state are changing. Some researchers argue that the state is transforming, strategically adapting to new circumstances, while others see a development of governing arrangements that are autonomous from the state, governing ‘ without ’ government. This article assesses the governing without government thesis...
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