Taking the form of a play involving foresters, villagers and students, the "conventional" approach to forestry is questioned. The concept of meeting planting targets but failing to encourage communities to look after the trees or manage them is discussed. Through the use of questionnaires the foresters try to discover the importance of trees and different species for firewood. However they discover that there are a number of problems in the questionaire method, such as time, relevance, clarity, enumerator bias, and relevant analysis. PRA is introduced by a postgraduate student, who persuades the foresters that using PRA techniques would be a positive step forward in their region, and provide constructive and interesting information about people's own knowledge and preferences. The use of PRA, through informal interviews, ranking and group meetings, proves to be much more directed and successful than the questionaire and the "results" much more usable on a practical level. There is an appendix which discusses the principles and methods of PRA
Publication year:
1992
Interest groups:
An easily readable and understandable approach to dealing with institutional bias against PRA, useful for those working at district and regional level, and also for community level workers specifically but not exclusively concerned with forestry.
Publisher reference:
Overseas Development Institute