Linking government with community resource management : what's working and what's not.

This report (based largely on the discussions held at the 5th Asia Forest Network meeting held at Surajkund, India in 1996), synthesises the experiences of community forestry management in the region.
The report begins by outlining the main trends in forest policy in each country.
The elements considered necessary for transition of forest management to local communities are examined, including enabling policies, the need for reorientation of Forestry Agencies and ways of enhancing development support agency programs.
The political and economic factors which undermine community involvement in forest management are considered, including inequities in resource flows whereby national goverenments tend to regard forest regions as resource banks to be used according to state requirements and also problems of delegating authority to the administrative village level which may not reflect interest user groups.
Finally, the strategies and activities planned to be taken in the future are outlined for each participating country.