Collaborative Governance of Tropical Landscapes

This book provides a novel approach to governance relating to biodiversity and human well-being in complex tropical landscapes, including forests and protected areas. It focuses attention at the interface between communities and the landscape level, building on interdisciplinary research conducted in five countries (Cameroon, Indonesia, Laos, Madagascar and Tanzania). In each country, the research was set within the framework of a major national policy thrust. The book improves our understanding of and ability to manage complex landscapes---mosaics of differing land uses---in a more adaptive and collaborative way that benefits both the environment and local communities. It includes both single country and cross-site analyses, and focuses on themes, such as resettlement, land use planning, non-timber forest product use and management, the disconnect between customary and formal legal systems, and the role of larger scale policies in local level realities. Chapters also analyze experience with monitoring and a local governance assessment tool. The work also provides guidance for those interested in management and governance at lower and intermediate levels (village, district), scales likely to grow in importance in the global effort to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Carol J. Pierce Colfer, PhD, MPH, is an anthropologist, a Senior Associate at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia), and a Visiting Scholar at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York). Much of her recent research has focused on governance and health in tropical forested areas. She has also recently published a ethnographic monograph documenting thirty years of research on the Uma' Jalan Kenyah of Indonesian Borneo. Jean-Laurent Pfund, PhD is a Forester and a Senior Scientist at CIFOR, Indonesia. He has long experience with the people and forests of Madagascar and led the research project from which this book derives.

Contributors.  Acknowledgements.  Abbreviations.  List of figures, tables, and boxes.  1. An Introduction to Five Tropical Landscapes, Their People and Their Governance.  2. The Governance of Tropical Forested Landscapes  3. Role of the District Government in Directing Landscape Dynamics and People's Futures: Lessons Learnt from Bungo District, in Jambi Province.  4. Information Flows, Decision Making and Social Acceptability in Displacement Processes.  5. Changing Landscapes, Transforming Institutions: Local Management of Natural Resources in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania.  6. Traditional Use of Forest Fragments in Manompana, Madagascar.  7. The Role of Wild Species in Governance of Tropical Forested Landscapes.  8. Governance and NTFP Chains in the Takamanda-Mone Landscape, Cameroon.  9. A Dozen Indicators for Assessing Governance in Forested Landscapes.  10. Minefields in Collaborative Governance.  11. The Essential Task of 'Muddling Through' to Better Landscape Governance.  Index