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Plural perspectives and institutional dynamics: challenges for local forest management

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Title Plural perspectives and institutional dynamics: challenges for local forest management
 
Creator Leach, M.
Fairhead, James
 
Subject community forestry
communities
forests
forest management
cooperation
institutions
pluralism
social differentiation
 
Description Co-management approaches in forestry have frequently failed to fulfill their promise and have generated unexpected conflicts. This is partly because they intersect with a plurality of interests and concerns, in settings that are more socially, institutionally and ecologically differentiated and dynamic than is often assumed. This article engages with current debates around pluralism in community forestry, and illustrates how they can be informed by a better understanding of institutional dynamics. It begins by characterizing the dynamic forest landscapes in which community forestry processes are enacted. It goes on to sketch out some analytical tools that can help illuminate these processes, and which expose the links between interests in forests, resource access and control, and institutions. In this context, the third part of the article illustrates how institutional dynamics can work out in practice when villagers, governmental, non-governmental and donor agencies interact in the practice of community forestry. The need to take account of multiple institutions and power relations, to manage pluralism rather than necessarily attempting to achieve consensus, and to appreciate social and ecological uncertainties, suggests that forest management should seek to influence processes rather than to define states, and be adaptive rather than pre-planned.
 
Date 2001
2012-06-04T09:08:32Z
2012-06-04T09:08:32Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Leach, M., Fairhead, J. 2001. Plural perspectives and institutional dynamics: challenges for local forest management . International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology 1 (3/4) :223-242.
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/18544
https://www.cifor.org/knowledge/publication/1070
 
Language en
 
Source International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology