This paper identifies strategic weaknesses in the devolution policy process in forest management and analyses the reasons behind them. Further, it establishes the relationship of devolution policy outcomes with governance and institutional structures. The field research was undertaken in the Philippines, taking six cases of community based forest management (CBFM) sites in the province of Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino and employing a qualitative technique for data collection and interpretation. The study demonstrates that the devolution policy process has two major interrelated strategic weaknesses: one is inadequate policy articulation and the other is a set of differences between policy and the complex reality of implementation. Drawing upon this analysis of strategic weaknesses in the devolution policy process in the Philippines the paper argues that the level of success of policy outcomes is dependent on the interrelation between the levels of devolution with clear policy articulation on the one hand and quality of governance and institutional structures on the other.

The age structure of a stand provides an understanding of important ecological processes taking place during stand development. The age of trees has been estimated by historical records, estimation from tree size, ring counting at breast height and ground level, pith node counting, and dendrochronological cross dating. Each of these methods has inherent advantages and limitations. In the fire-driven boreal forest, stand age structure has been found to shift from a relatively even-aged structure, where all trees establish immediately after fire with a similar height and diameter, to one that is uneven-aged, where trees vary in height and diameter as time since fire increases. The age structure dynamics differ with stand species composition and influenced by non-stand replacing disturbances. Traditional forest management can shift the age structure at both the stand and landscape level, but silvicultural systems and forest management planning techniques are available to mimic natural age structural patterns.

Forests could play a major role in the alleviation of poverty in many different parts of the world. However, forests are dynamic, and their rate of change is accelerating as a result of anthropogenic activities. Climate change, for example, will alter the nature of many protection forests in mountainous areas, exposing the inhabitants to increased risk from natural hazards. It will also affect the viability of plantation forests established in drier areas to combat desertification. Many forests are showing increased productivity, although the causes remain unclear. Sea-level change will destabilize coastal forests, particularly mangroves, reducing their effectiveness in coastal protection. Air pollution has already destabilized many forests, and is likely to be an increasing problem in the forests surrounding urban areas in developing countries. Many impacts remain uncertain, and there remains a great need to integrate the biophysical knowledge that currently exists with socioeconomic information associated with the impact on forest-dependent communities.

We assessed the performance of ten incidence-based estimators of tree species richness in simulated simple random sampling with fixed-area plots. Stem diameter-limited tree species and location data came from two species-rich wet tropical forest compartments in Panama and India. Lower limits of stem diameter were 1 cm and 30 cm, respectively. Estimators varied widely in their estimates of richness and their rankings changed frequently across sites and sample designs. A gamma-Poisson estimator was overall best according to a performance score of three accuracy statistics and sample size. However, until corroborated by further studies, Chao's 1981 non-parametric estimator is recommended for forest inventories with fixed-area plots.

Forest planning and management concepts can sometimes be difficult to grasp. Games provide an effective way to demonstrate different concepts and facilitate deeper understanding of approaches and practices to sustainable forest management. In this paper we describe a game devised to demonstrate alternative ways to set allowable harvest levels in large (> 10,000 ha) native forest planning units. The game requires minimal materials (photocopies of relevant maps and a few hundred beer bottle tops), and can be played and debriefed in 23 hours. The game focuses on the principles underlying area control and volume control of timber harvesting, and provides a basis for discussion of inventory and monitoring needs. The game has been popular and effective in courses for forestry professionals in developing countries, and for students in an undergraduate forestry course.

In a developing country such as India the contingent valuation method (CVM) cannot always provide a correct valuation of recreational use benefits of an environmental resource given the huge size of the parallel economy involving different categories of middle to upper income group families which have the capacity to move as tourists. The ‘participant observation method’ and ‘unstructured interview schedule’ are necessary tools to be used in such cases, in addition to a ‘structured interview schedule’ which is used for primary data collection in the travel cost method (TCM) and the CVM under normal circumstances. A general model depicting the relation of the ratio of consumer surplus estimated in TCM and CVM with ‘corruption perception index’ has been developed in the case of tourists from various countries with different world rankings in so far as their parallel economy and level of corruption are concerned.

The application of data from a continuous forest inventory, CFI, system over fifteen years to a wood lot licence in British Columbia is described. The B.C. Forest Service is responsible for forest management based on an annual allowable cut where the cut calculation has been related to the silvicultural system of clear cutting, based on computer modelling to predict growth and yield. Public pressure toward selection cutting and retention has developed and clear cutting is being partly replaced by retention to create a continuous forest cover system in which CFI could be applied.

Canada and its provinces have been working towards CFI, coordinated through the Canadian Forest Inventory Committee whose objective is to measure, record and report on Canada's forest inventory and to monitor change and the forest's sustainability. This approach may also be useful to the National Forest Strategy Coalition.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage an intellectual debate. I have deliberately avoided the common rhetoric and poverty statistics that have recently come to characterize or accompany any statement on Africa. For so long, the rhetoric that Africa is poor and therefore incapable of spawning its own development has dominated communication and information systems that they could become “facts” in the minds of some people. If this is not nipped in the bud, especially for the youth of Africa, it will cost the continent dearly in terms of future development. The only way we can sustain development in Africa is to recognize and engage our own intellectual and physical strengths for that purpose, while tapping into our natural capital. It is argued that natural resource education, research and innovation should be funded from the very resources that we are seeking to improve. Thus the starting point is an analysis of the values we should assign to research and education.