Communities at the heart of forest management: How can the law make a difference?

The report identifies ten 'building blocks' for enabling community forestry laws, emphasizing the need for secure tenure, simple allocation processes, and inclusive governance. Through case studies of Nepal, the Philippines, and Tanzania, it argues that legal frameworks should be supportive rather than restrictive, iterative in design, and coherent across multiple sectors to ensure sustainable forest management and improved local livelihoods.

• Successful community forestry requires an enabling regulatory framework characterized by secure tenure, strong governance, viable technology, adequate market knowledge, and a supportive bureaucracy.
• The report identifies ten essential 'building blocks' for legal frameworks: land and forest tenure, allocation of community forests, internal community governance, participation of vulnerable groups, forest management rules, market access, benefit sharing, conflict resolution, enforcement, and external support.
• Statutory recognition of land and forest tenure is a strong enabling factor that encourages long-term forest stewardship by preventing community dispossession.
• In Nepal, the creation of independent Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) as legal entities has provided communities with significant autonomy from state administration, allowing them to remain resilient even during periods of state dysfunction.
• The Philippines' Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) system has faced challenges due to a lack of primary legislation, relying instead on a 'plethora of administrative issuances' that are unstable and vulnerable to political pressure.
• Gender-focused legal provisions in Nepal, such as requiring 50% of Executive Committee positions to be held by women, have led to approximately 1,000 women-only-led community forests and increased female leadership in broader local government.
• Complex and overly technical requirements for forest management plans can hinder access to community forestry; in the Philippines, it is estimated that fewer than 50% of CBFM agreement holders have completed their plans.
• Centralization of the allocation process in the Philippines, requiring final approval from central offices in Manila regardless of area size, has increased allocation time and distanced decision-making from local realities.
• Effective community forestry laws should be iterative and participatory, utilizing 'action learning' to refine regulations based on empirical evidence and stakeholder feedback, as demonstrated by Nepal's policy evolution since 1988.

APA

Faure, N., Ichou, B., & Venisnik, T. (2019). Communities at the heart of forest management: How can the law make a difference? ClientEarth. https://www.clientearth.org/media/mr2f3x3k/communities-at-the-heart-of-forest-management-ce-en.pdf

Chicago

Faure, Nathalie, Benjamin Ichou, and Tanja Venisnik. Communities at the heart of forest management: How can the law make a difference? ClientEarth, 2019. https://www.clientearth.org/media/mr2f3x3k/communities-at-the-heart-of-forest-management-ce-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Faure |first1=Nathalie |last2=Ichou |first2=Benjamin |last3=Venisnik |first3=Tanja |title=Communities at the heart of forest management: How can the law make a difference? |publisher=ClientEarth |date=February 2019 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/mr2f3x3k/communities-at-the-heart-of-forest-management-ce-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{faure2019communities, author = {Faure, Nathalie and Ichou, Benjamin and Venisnik, Tanja}, title = {{Communities at the heart of forest management: How can the law make a difference?}}, institution = {ClientEarth}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/mr2f3x3k/communities-at-the-heart-of-forest-management-ce-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }