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Forest governance schemes should incorporate the principles of legality, legitimacy, and legitimation.
The principle of legality arises from the existence of a legal framework in force.
The principle of legitimacy is born from social recognition.
The principle of legitimation can be understood from the desired effect of both the law and social recognition.
Normative, sociological and institutional indicators can be identified that allow understanding of the legitimacy.
SUMMARY
At the international level, the REDD+ mechanism has been promoted through public policies and financial incentives to improve forest conditions and reduce climate change. Given the dynamics of deforestation and forest degradation in Mexico, REDD+ has been implemented as a strategy that can be analyzed under indicators of legality, legitimacy and legitimation to understand its acceptance in the community and the achievement of the effects of policies planned, formulated, implemented and evaluated as forest governance schemes. The objective of this study is to identify in the scientific literature the main indicators of legality, legitimacy and legitimation in public policies and to propose a framework for analyzing forest governance in Mexico, using REDD+ as an example of an emerging international public policy. To achieve an approach to legality, legitimacy and legitimation, an exploration, review and description of various studies that have identified these indicators has been carried out. Some of the studies are associated with forest governance schemes and propose models to determine their presence in government actions, public policies and forestry legislation. The main findings suggest that the construction of normative, sociological and institutional indicators, mainly for forest legitimacy, as well as the knowledge of the normativity (legality) and the effect caused (legitimation) must be understood in an interrelated way, even though, in the literature, some authors identify legitimacy as synonymous with legitimation.
Natural and man-made factors are responsible for forest exploitation.
Weak forest policies and legislatures contribute to deforestation.
The impacts of population growth and climate change affect forest sustainability.
Natural forest and plantation area estimates in Sierra Leone are uncertain.
Significant revisions are required in forest legislation.
SUMMARY
Sierra Leone is part of the Upper Guinean Forests with a climate that enhances great floral biodiversity. The exploitation of forest resources in Sierra Leone has seen a steady increase over the years while the establishment of forest plantations has witnessed a drastic decline. The relationship between forest exploitation and plantation forest decline is broadly assumed to be influenced by population growth, weak forest policies, legislatures, forest management and monitoring policies over the past century. The paper examines forests status and forest resources policy evolution since the pre-colonial era but pays particular attention to policies developed from 1988, in the post-colonial era, and the challenges facing their implementation. The paper highlights major challenges facing the healthy and sustainable growth of forest resources in Sierra Leone. The challenges range from the attachment of the Forestry Division to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security (MAFFS), the overlap in ministerial mandates about forest protection, corrupt government officials, poverty, illegal logging, inadequate funding and staff, natural disaster and outdated forestry instruments. Natural factors such as climate change, drought, and landslides are considered among the issues affecting the sustainable expansion of forest resources in Sierra Leone. A flowchart of forest sustainability challenges in Sierra Leone was designed, and classified forest challenges into natural and man-made causes. The inability of the Forestry Division to become an independent body and the continued reliance of the Division on the 1988 Forestry Act to make informed decisions in the 21st century is serving as a major barrier in sustaining forests resources in Sierra Leone. Improving forest management in the country requires the collective efforts of both national and international forests protections entities and organizations. Sound forests conservation policies and adequate funding and staffing can strengthen the Forestry Division in enforcing its constitutional mandates. Adopting the best practices models from countries such as China, India and the USA will help towards the goal of managing forest resources sustainably for current and future generations.
For more than a century, management of the Hyrcanian forests was focused on wood production. However, the selection of conservation indicators as the most important reveals a recent emphasis amongst forest managers on other functions of the Hyrcanian forests.
Most previous studies in the Hyrcanian forests prioritized indicators based on their importance. By adding measurability as an additional factor, the protection indicators showed the highest value among all Hyrcanian forest function indicators.
Only a few recreation indicators remained as important or measurable indicators, which may be attributable to the lack of strong theory and appropriate practices related to recreation.
In addition to the measurability attribute, the interconnection of indicators plays a significant role in achieving a set of key performance indicators. The indicators' overall cumulative impacts determine those with the highest centrality and were eventually assumed as the key performance indicators.
Based on the interconnections between indicators, five indicators were recognized as key performance indicators for four forest functions, consistent with a more realistic view of forest management with particular attention to the cost and effort involved in measuring indicators.
SUMMARY
This study identifies key performance indicators for monitoring the sustainability of forest functions in the northern forests of Iran. This process was conducted in two phases through the Delphi method, and Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM). The Delphi method classified indicators according to two properties, importance and measurability. These were used to identify four classes: (a) important and measurable, (b) important and less measurable, (c) less important and measurable, (d) less important and less measurable. Indicators placed in groups (a) and (b) were then used to develop a set of key performance indicators using FCM. The FCM enabled the evaluation of the overall cumulative impacts of all indicators within the network, individually and collectively, through their interactions with other indicators. The selected methods and possible application of the key performance indicators could be used to determine how to achieve the sustainable management of a forest area.
The role of forests in climate change mitigation and adaptation is one of the most contested concepts in international climate policy.
Climate and forest policies' targets are intrinsically connected in a way that the implementation of one can produce either a trade-off or synergy with the other.
To strengthen synergies between forestry and climate policies, there is a need for the explicit recognition of mutually supportive links between both policies.
To effectively integrate forest management discourses into climate policy, regulations and guidelines have to be grounded in the experiences and lessons of forest policy implementations.
Legislation and law enforcement alone will be insufficient to preserve forest integrity if policies do not promote local ownership, participation and local sustainable development.
SUMMARY
In South Africa, forests can play an important role in achieving the broader goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, national policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation seem to narrow the potential contributions of the forest sector to climate protection targets. This is largely because of the divergence between the management goals of forests for climate protection, and products for both industries and livelihoods. This article uses discourse analysis as a methodological tool to analyze South Africa's climate and forest policies to identify the discourses shaping forest policy goals and mandates, and their integration into climate policy targets for forest-based climate change interventions. Four discourses, namely, preservation of forest integrity, social inclusiveness, equitable benefit sharing, and inclusive development of forests and forest-based communities, were identified as the dominant discourses influencing forest policy goals in South Africa. Their influence on forest management programmes has a mix of costs and benefits outcomes. For example, policy responses to the discourse on the preservation of forest integrity have resulted in ecologically sustainable forests in some cases and in other cases restricted the participation of local people in forest enterprise development. Additionally, climate policies recognized six possible interventions with respect to forest-based climate change mitigation and adaptation in South Africa but were silent about the four discourses shaping forest policy goals. Consequently, existing climate policies do not contain regulations to guide forest management for climate change mitigation and adaptation. We therefore recommend that forest-related goals in climate policy be grounded in the past experiences and lessons of forest policy implementations in order to take advantage of the synergies and reduce the trade-offs with respect to multipurpose management of forests for livelihoods, enterprise development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Operational plans have presented identical sets of forest management objectives and activities irrespective of the varying biophysical and social contexts of their implementation.
Collective management objectives of community forestry differ from the priorities of individual households in the rural communities.
The contents of operational plans, which are designed to inform forest management decisions, are barely related to and poorly understood by local communities.
Operational plans have received a symbolic value of forest ownership rather than being used as device to guide forest management operations.
The plans need revision in their technical content in order to make them relevant to the capacity, priority and practices of forest management by local communities.
SUMMARY
Operational plans are a key element in community forestry in Nepal. However, the relevance of these plans to forest user groups (FUGs) is under scrutiny. This study investigates the usefulness of operational plans against the backdrop of knowledge, capacity and management practices of FUGs. Data were collected from 13 operational plans, 16 group discussions involving forestry professionals, and 218 household interviews in two villages of Lamjung district in Nepal. Whereas operational plans should specifically reflect site specific objectives and activities of forest management, the survey revealed identical objectives across the community forests. Current operational plans are technically complex, poorly linked to the place-based context of livelihood needs and less useful to the FUGs to inform and enhance forest management. This study proposes to differentiate community forests according to their production potentials, and revise the operational plans by shortening the elements that have little or no relevance to the FUGs.
Development and innovation in the sustainable forest products industry enhances socio-economic growth and the optimization of environmental objectives.
Land and forest resources are the major basic productive factors for primary and secondary forest products manufacturing.
Productive factors determine the development and competitiveness of forest products.
Collective actions and inclusiveness are important in large-scale tree planting programmes for accelerated impact.
A sustainable landscape approach is an effective tool for sustainable forest management and innovative forest products industry development.
SUMMARY
The objective of this study was to examine existing knowledge on forest products development and to promote sustainable forest management in Ethiopia. Furthermore, the paper aimed to assess the development and status of Ethiopia's forest products industry in terms of resource base, manufacturing and marketing. It was found that the current annual fuelwood consumption is about 133M m3, with 90% of cooking energy obtained from woody biomass. Wood consumption for primary and secondary forest products manufacturing is expected to increase from the current 112M m3 to 158M m3 by 2033. This review reveals that the development and innovation of a sustainable forest products industry in Ethiopia should balance the production and ecological functions of forest resources. To meet Ethiopia's primary and secondary forest products needs, it is recommended that a clear policy framework be advanced and promoted, including wood technology, forest science and education, silviculture, and post-plantation management practices.
The study responds to the lack of information on India's environmental policy engagement space by engaging in a literature review and analysis.
We analyzed recent environment policy development cases to characterize the engagement interface.
On contentious issues, while policy engagements that emanated from the ‘closed’, ‘invited' and ‘claimed' spaces resulted in standoffs, those negotiated in the ‘deliberative’ space were more successful.
We developed an analytical framework of the ‘environment policy development triangle' depicting how the four distinct ‘engagement spaces’ (closed, invited, deliberative and claimed) are created along the gradient of power sharing, inclusiveness and impact.
We argue the need for the reimagining of India's environment policy making process with stakeholders discarding authoritative and confrontational engagement approaches and collaborating in newly created and strengthened deliberative spaces.
SUMMARY
Various stakeholders from science, policy and practice aspire to shape public policy. What are the engagement spaces they operate in, and what are the characteristics of these spaces and the implications for effective policy making? The literature on the public policy formulation process in developing countries is sparse, and this study attempts to bridge this gap. We analyzed India's recent environmental policy making engagements using the lens of ‘policy spaces'. We found that strong civil society coalitions have successfully ‘claimed' the policy making space. Conventional policy making operating in ‘closed' and ‘invited' spaces is yet to accept this change, resulting in frequent standoffs. However, when policies emanated from the ‘deliberative’ space, there have been successes as well. The policy development space has consequently become contested, with nature conservation, forest-based livelihoods and corporate interests all staking their claim. To break this impasse, we recommend a graduation from confrontational and authoritative engagement approaches to deliberative arenas.
This paper examined the capacity of Forest Management Units (FMUs) to create the space for adaptive co-management using the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) framework.
The analyses show that FMUs in Indonesia lack authority and the ability and acceptance to facilitate a reform space for adaptive co-management at the site-management level.
FMUs need the authority to make independent decisions at the site-management level to accommodate the interests of place-based actors in the reform process.
FMUs are not able to sustain and evolve partnership agreements without trust (acceptance) from placed-based actors.
FMUs need the ability and authority to win place-based actors' trust to engage them in discourse on the future direction of collaborative forest management, protection, and use.
SUMMARY
A multi-jurisdictional governance system, polycentric power regimes, and overlapping rights complicate policy responses for addressing forest governance problems in Indonesia. Confronting issues that have existed for centuries as part of Indonesia's socio-cultural and political reality cannot easily be solved at the macro-scale. However, we argue that they can be tackled at the micro-scale. Adaptive co-management could offer a means of finding collaborative solutions to these problems, and we believe this approach will be effective when the problems are defined locally in a specific area with a limited number of stakeholders. This paper examines the capacity of Forest Management Units (FMUs), as the lowest level operational structure of forest management in Indonesia, to facilitate reform for adaptive co-management approaches. We examined this through an analytical framework derived from the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation approach. This paper identifies the importance of stakeholders' acceptance to enable FMUs to coordinate adaptive co-management.
The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to select influencing factors on farmers' willingness to participate in Forest Management for Carbon Sequestration (FMCS) on the Sloping Land Conservation Program (SLCP) enrolled land.
Farmers' willingness to participate in FMCS on the SLCP land is not high.
Evaluation of result, result belief, normative belief, and motivation to comply all significantly affect farmers' participation willingness.
The participation willingness of farmers varies between different genders and ages.
A policy path to supply carbon sequestration from forest management is provided.
SUMMARY
Forest Management for Carbon Sequestration (FMCS) on the Sloping Land Conservation Program (SLCP) helps to promote afforestation, improve the economic wellbeing of small farmers, and helps them to cope with climate change. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this paper examines farmers' willingness to participate from five dimensions: evaluation of result, result belief, normative belief, motivation to comply, and control belief. Results show that 1) farmers' willingness to participate in FMCS on the SLCP land is not high; 2) evaluation of result, result belief, normative belief, and motivation to comply all significantly affect farmers' participation willingness; and 3) the participation willingness of farmers varies between different genders and ages. This study provides a decision-making basis for the implementation of FMCS in China. Results also have implications for the adoption of FMCS programs in other developing countries.
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