Social conflicts with local people have caused some unsuccessful timber plantation developments in Indonesia. Company and community partnerships have provided opportunities for companies to accommodate local communities' involvement and attempt to overcome these difficulties. Constraints in establishing mutually beneficial partnerships were studied, mainly to improve their long-term viability. The main components of a successful mutually beneficial partnership were defined as: commercial feasibility, equitable contractual agreements, the full understanding of both parties of the potential benefits and costs, and risks of joining the partnership, and a shared understanding of co-management and participatory approaches. The implementation of all three case studies suffered from: a lack of mechanisms to build trust; challenges to commercial viability due to inadequate management planning and consequently poor implementation; inadequate assessment of community needs and resulting waste of companies' funds when developing income generating packages; no clear long-term reinvestment strategy; and poorly developed negotiation and renegotiation mechanisms.

Participatory Forest Management is a new strategy for the Forest Departments of Kenya and Zambia. Over the last five years or so, an increasing number of small project initiatives have been supported in both countries to test this model. Progress has been slowed by a lack of policy and legal frameworks, as well as management reluctance to take responsibility for new ideas and ways of engaging with multiple stakeholders. The authors argue that both of these governments as well as the international donors need to collaborate to develop suitable systems for monitoring and assessing progress towards improvements in resource utilisation and livelihoods.

The forest management system of any country manifests the philosophy, principles and direction to be followed in the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. The management system of Turkey, essentially initiated in 1960's by the help of European counterparts, focuses primarily on commodity production. With 21 million ha of forested land, the country has several distinct biogeographic regions, each having its own endemic species and natural ecosystems providing major flyways for millions of migratory birds and containing almost three quarters of the total plant species in Europe. As such its management is of crucial importance to the rest of the world. Various forest values such as recreation, water production, soil protection and biodiversity conservation were, however, not integrated into forest management using advanced information technologies. Establishing an effective multiple use forest management system based on participation is a great challenge for the Turkish Forestry sector. This paper presents the current management philosophy, regulations, socio-cultural and organizational structure, and implementation of management activities across the country. The forest management system is criticized based on the sustainable forest management concept. Major pitfalls of the system are documented and some avenues for sound management are presented. The paper concludes that the management system is outdated with a neo-classic European style that focuses on a short-sighted solo area regulation with a single wood production focus and calls for an urgent change in the planning concept towards holistic management with the integration of various forest values based on ecosystem sustainability.

This study investigated the effects of tariff liberalization on the global forest sector by using a computable general equilibrium model, based on the standard Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model and its database, version 5. Tariff liberalization would generally cause only small changes in the terms of trade, real GDP, and the consumption and prices of forest products in most countries. National welfare would increase substantially in Indonesia by more than one billion US dollars in the long run. The prices of forest products would decrease in most countries. The effects of tariff liberalization would also be small on production with few exceptions, for example Indonesia and Malaysia. The major impact of tariff liberalization would be on trade of the developing countries in South America and Asia. Some of the changes in exports or imports of forest products could be more than 50%.

Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) play a major role in creating livelihoods for forest dwellers (FDs). FDs generally find it difficult to obtain finance to support their livelihoods and have to depend on pre-harvest trading of NWFPs even though it is exploitative and leads to sale without any value addition. Alternately they have to borrow from traders at high interest rates because they do not have access to formal financial institutions. Provisions for creating access to microfinance will enable FDs to undertake NWFPs value additions and save them from exploitation by moneylenders and traders. The path to sustainable economic development of forest dwellers includes innovative approaches to natural resource conservation, management and utilization. This paper studies the economic impact of NWFP value additions such as storage, processing, adoption of appropriate technology, distribution and packaging. In addition, the amount of microfinance required for employing such value addition activities is assessed.

Owing to the failure of the earlier system of managing forests without inputs from local people Joint Forest Management and Community Forestry came into practice over the last decade based on psychological principles of management with people's participation. Its establishment has allowed forest department staff to redefine their relationship with villagers in order to regain their trust and alliance by changing attitudes, perceptions and leadership styles.

Although both India and Nepal share the principles of community-based forest management, owing to the cultural differences it has been considered that there was a likelihood of differential preferences for leadership styles. Since leadership is essential to the introduction and efficient implementation of Community Forestry a study was conducted in the western Terai region of Nepal to examine this issue. Results indicated the existence of a participatory style of leadership in Nepal which the local people support. They indicated their desire for leaders to be more participatory and less autocratic than was currently the case but also supported the employment of a nurturant leadership style where this was not possible. Results are discussed in line with cultural variations in personality, local traditions and the forestry situation. Comparative behavioural models for effective forest management in India and Nepal were also discussed.

Rajasthan presents evidence for the existence of one of the most advanced examples of ancient mining and accompanied deforestation to be found anywhere in the world. Mining continues to be an important economic activity contributing to 2% of the State Domestic Product and providing at least a 1.76 % share to the regular employment pool in Rajasthan. However, economic benefits of mineral extraction also accompany environmental, economic and social costs. Mine waste dumps and mined out areas viewed simply as the legacies of past may appear overwhelming environmental hazards presenting ugly picture of cultural landscape. However, mine wastes can be transformed into an opportunity for learning, adaptation and productivity enhancement for sustainable livelihoods through ecological restoration. Here we propose a strategy for mine spoil restoration aimed at creating a multifunctional ecosystem in mine waste dumps. We suggest that dredging and sediment removal from traditional tanks and ponds can potentially be used to prepare the substratum over the mine wastes for direct seeding. It will also create enhanced decentralized water storage capacity for wildlife and people. Our strategy combines the concomitant revival of traditional water harvesting systems, ground water recharge, enhanced biomass production and an adaptation to random recurrence of droughts in Rajasthan.

We each have perceptions of how much time we have left and what we should do with it. These perceptions have implications for our treatment of natural forests. Such forests simply cannot compete in terms of generating revenue per unit area with land use alternatives such as intensive agriculture or forest plantations. Treating our life and living ecosystems as if they were infinite does not make them so. We need to reformulate an ethic that has a better understanding of time. We need that ethic embedded in policies and institutions that are temporally aware and serve future generations. The latter have no advocate to plead their case. This paper takes a preliminary look at some questions that deserve our attention: What is time? How much time is left? Should we adopt a precautionary approach as a result? What is it worthwhile for us to do with time — what constitutes value within it? Does value change over time? Can we share values without sharing time? It concludes with some suggestions for changing our forest ethics and decision-making. It is also a call to personal and collective temperance.