CO-MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNITY FORESTRY, ARE THEY SIMILAR OR DIFFERENT?
Dr Klaus Schmitt, Chief Technical Advisor, Management of Natural Resources in the Coastal Zone of Soc Trang Province
If you look into the literature you will find many different definitions for co-management and community forestry; and, particularly for community forestry, the definitions vary from country to country. It is therefore not possible to compare two simple and widely accepted definitions in order to answer the question are forest co-management and community forestry the same or are they different. To answer this question we need to look at the key elements of the definitions and compare them.
Co-management
One of the most comprehensive and up-to-date papers about co-management has been written by Borini-Feyerabend (2011). She summarises the advances of international conservation polices and agreements over the last 15 years and concludes that they not only talk about participation, culture and equity, they also deal with governance. Governance – in contrast to management which is about what to do – is about who decides what to do. Therefore, the term shared governance should be used when talking about co-management to avoid a one-sided focus on what to do and to include the important element of who decides what to do. In this article, the term co-management is used with a clear understanding that it includes shared governance.
Shared governance or co-management is the type of management/governance in which decision making power, responsibility and accountability are shared between governmental agencies and other stakeholders, in particular the indigenous peoples and local communities, who depend on the natural resources culturally and/or for their livelihoods.
Co-management can be seen along a continuum in between a situation of full control by a state government (such as a National Park managed by a state authority) and a situation of full control by local actors (see table 3 page 27, Dudley 2008).
Co-management can be achieved through a process of negotiation where representatives of governments, communities and other actors meet, exchange their views, find an accord about aims and solutions and develop a more or less formal co-management agreement about sharing authority, responsibility and accountability regarding the territory, area or natural resources at stake.
A shared governance institution will ensure that stakeholders not only deal with technical and practical matters when implementing the agreement (what to do about the natural resources at stake), but also about decision making processes and institutions.
Co-management is an approach widely adopted throughout the world. However, the forms that negotiations can take vary enormously, as well as the agreements and institutions they produce. Many examples from all over the world can be found in Borrini-Feyerabend et al. (2004) and an example from the Mekong Delta in Viet Nam is provided by Lloyd (2010) and Schmitt (2011).
The key elements or characteristics of co-management compared with other forms of governance and management can be summarised as: (1) a negotiation process; (2) a co-management agreement; and (3) a pluralistic governance institution/management board.
Community forestry
Most definitions of community forestry stress the importance of participation and benefit-sharing. Community forestry is often seen as a process of increasing the involvement of and rewards for local people, of seeking balance between outside and community interests and of increasing local responsibility for the management of the forest resource. Like in comanagement it is often also considered a learning experience for all parties involved.
Community forestry was initially defined by FAO in 1978, and can be defined as an umbrella term for a wide range of activities which link rural people with forests and the products and benefits derived from them.
In Viet Nam, community forestry (rừng cộng đồng, or lâm nghiệp cộng đồng) refers to a wide range of managerial arrangements for forest management. It includes traditional indigenous management and forest management by unions and cooperatives. Land use rights are provided through traditional recognised land use, contractual arrangements (green book, annual protection contracts), or legal long-term land titles in the form of red books (Wode and Huy 2009).
These authors define community forestry as “any managerial arrangements in which local people are jointly engaged in managing natural forest resources inside their community boundaries for which long-term utilisation rights have been handed over to its managers.” This does not include community forestry arrangements where local people are only involved in forest leasing or contracting (green books) while the land use certificate remains with a forest company or a state entity.
In summary, community forestry in Viet Nam is forest management with a focus on silviculture including timber and non-forest timber product utilisation, enrichment of natural forests, afforestation of bare land and benefits from environmental services.
Conclusion
When comparing the key elements of co-management and community forestry it is obvious that governance is the main distinguishing factor. Community forestry has a clear emphasis on management and, in addition in Viet Nam, on forest land allocation. In community forestry the government’s role is often that of a technical advisor, not a joint decision-maker – it is not about shared governance, it is about management.
However, in recent years, issues related to governance have become more and more important in community forestry. In Viet Nam, the only governance structure recognised from a legal perspective is forest management by a whole village or village forest management (Sikor and Nguyen 2011). Therefore, community forestry can also be described as a form of community governance (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2010) which is different from co-management which is joint management or shared governance.
Another distinguishing factor is that community forestry and land allocation does not work effectively in every situation. Sikor and Nguyen (2011) conclude that transfer of tenure to communities possesses little value if forest protection obligations are more important than rights to forest management. This for example is the case when looking at mangrove forests. Here co-management is an effective way of maintaining and enhancing the protection function of the mangrove forest while at the same time providing livelihoods for local communities (Schmitt 2011). In such a situation community forestry does not work.
Community forestry (community governance) in Viet Nam and comanagement (shared governance) are different forms of management and governance which should both be applied wherever appropriate in an integrated and site spice approach to natural resource management.
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