Resources

Examines the failure of the state forestry agency (the Forestry Commission) to involve local rural communities in the management of its substantial forest land holdings in Scotland. This disregard for local people is in spite of the governments declared support for the UNCED Forest Principles and the article suggests that the FC would do well to learn from the governments overseas technical assistance programmes.
The experience of three Scottish NGO's to ensure the participation of local people at all stages of forestry planning and implementation through the use of PRA is outlined. This programme is revealed to have met with some opposition from the Foestry Commission but at the same time to have acted as a catalyst for recent changes in forest policy.

This paper outlines some of the factors affecting participation in environmental projects.
The paper argues that participation is in part hindered by the contemporary definition of environment, which has a "nature" and "dryland/ wildlife" bias and tends to neglect relationships between people and natural resources.
The way in which participation is also stifled by a failure of projects and programmes to take into account special aspects of local communities is also examined. Three aspects are considered in detail to illustrate this point : the importance of ownership, management and control of common property resources, the relationship between gender and the environment and the appropriateness of units such as, "village", "community" etc as organisational foci for environmental projects and programmes.
Lessons to be learned from Integrated Rural Development programmes with regards to integration and oganisation are outlined.