Synopses & Reviews
Unplanned deforestation, which is occurring at unsustainable rates in many parts of the world, can cause significant hardships for rural communities by destroying critical stocks of fuel, fodder, food, and building materials. It can also have profound regional and global consequences by contributing to biodiversity loss, erosion, floods, lowered water tables, and climate change.People and Forests explores the complex interactions between local communities and their forests. It focuses on the rules by which communities govern and manage their forest resources. As part of the International Forestry Resources and Institutions research program, each of the contributors employs the same systematic, comparative, and interdisciplinary methods to examine why some people use their forests sustainably while others do not. The case studies come from fieldwork in Bolivia, Ecuador, India, Nepal, and Uganda.People and Forests offers policymakers a sophisticated view of local forest management from which to develop policy options and offers biophysical and social scientists a better understanding of the linkages between residents, local institutions, and forests.Contributors : Arun Agrawal, Abwoli Y. Banana, C. Dustin Becker, Clark C. Gibson, William Gombya-Ssembajjwe, Rosario Leon, Margaret A. McKean, Elinor Ostrom, Charles M. Schweik, George Varughese, Mary Beth Wertime.
Synopsis
People and Forests explores the complex interactions between local communities and their forests, focusing on the rules by which communities govern and manage their forest resources.
Synopsis
Unplanned deforestation, which is occurring at unsustainable rates in many parts of the world, can cause significant hardships for rural communities by destroying critical stocks of fuel, fodder, food, and building materials. It can also have profound regional and global consequences by contributing to biodiversity loss, erosion, floods, lowered water tables, and climate change.
About the Author
Clark C. Gibson is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.Elinor Ostrom is Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Codirector of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, and Codirector of the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change (CIPEC) at Indiana University.Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
Table of Contents
Explaining deforestation : the role of local institutions / Clark C. Gibson, Margaret A. McKean, and Elinor Ostrom -- Common property : what is it, what is it good for, and what makes it work? / Margaret A. McKean -- Small is beautiful, but is larger better? Forest-management institutions in the Kumaon Himalaya, India / Arun Agrawal -- Successful forest management : the importance of security of tenure and rule enforcement in Ugandan forests / Abwoli Y. Banana and William Gombya-Ssembajjwe -- Optimal foraging, institutions, and forest change : a case from Nepal / Charles M. Schweik -- A lack of institutional demand : why a strong local community in Western Ecuador fails to protect its forest / Clark C. Gibson and C. Dustin Becker -- Indigenous forest management in the Bolivian Amazon : lessons from the Yuracarâe people / C. Dustin Becker and Rosario Leâon -- Population and forest dynamics in the hills of Nepal : institutional remedies by rural communities / George Varughese -- Forests, people, and governance : some initial theoretical lessons / Clark C. Gibson, Elinor Ostrom, and Margaret A. McKean -- Appendix : International forestry resources and institutions research strategy / Elinor Ostrom and Mary Beth Wertime.