Saturday, April 6, 2013

CIFOR Guide for Research on Forest Tenure Rights

A new guide by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), entitled "Tenure Rights and Access to Forests: A Training Manual for Research", attempts to help students, researchers and practitioners understand and tackle forest tenure issues. It addresses the following questions in particular: what is forest tenure and why does it matter; what determines tenure security and how does it affect people and forests; how do we ensure equitable distribution of benefits; and how do we manage competing interests in forests?

In an article on the training manual for the CIFOR blog, Anne Larson, CIFOR scientist and author of the manual, says, “Researchers have been grappling with complex forest tenure issues for 30-40 years now, yet these are still not widely understood and incorporated adequately into a broad range of forestry research.” According to Peter Holmgren, director general of CIFOR, “Understanding forest tenure is fundamental as international and large-scale investments compete with local stakeholders’ interests in forest land and forest services. This is particularly important in the dynamic interface between forests and agriculture, where decisions determine the fate of livelihoods and forest resources.”

The training manual is available for download in English.

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