This book provides a global perspective on the various issues that the industry has to face as well as to provide some key global strategies that can help coping with those global challenges, such as collaboration, strategic value chain planning, and interdependency analyses. It presents literature reviews, strategic research orientations, assessment of some current key issues, and state-of-the-art methodologies.

Products from the wild are used as medicines, cosmetics, drinks, foods, decorations, and for a multitude of other purposes. These products are used for subsistence, are traded locally and regionally, and comprise an important and growing commercial sector world-wide. Known as non-timber forest products (NTFPs) they contribute substantially to rural livelihoods, generate revenue for companies and governments, and have a range of impacts on biodiversity conservation. Although there are many commonalities in experience with NTFP regulation around the world, there is little information available to harvesters, companies, policy makers, NGOs, and others seeking to develop effective policy frameworks, and the lessons learned in this field are often not easily accessed.This guide and manual addresses the shortage of technical information available on the drafting, content, and implementation of NTFP policies, and the broader issues of governance associated with these products. It also develops an analytical framework for understanding the diverse issues and elements that combine to create laws and policies that promote sustainable and equitable management, trade and use of species. The book presents 13 country or regionally-specific case studies that examine experiences with NTFP regulation, including its sometimes unintended consequences, the effect of different policy approaches, the influence of globalization and macro-economic factors, the interface of traditional and scientific knowledge, and the relationships between NTFP regulation, land tenure and resource rights, and power and equity imbalances. Geographic coverage includes Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, China, East and CentralEurope, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Southern Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each chapter draws out lessons and recommendations that can be more broadly applied and an overview chapter synthesizes these and other experiences and provides a framework for the development of NTFP policy. A final section makes recommendations for various stakeholders. The volume also includes a review of available literature and resources and an annotated bibliography, including key articles, laws and other resources, linked to the People and Plants International website.Published with People and Plants International

At last a really useful book telling us how all the rhetoric about ecosystem approaches and sustainable forest management is being translated into practical solutions on the ground CLAUDE MARTIN, WWF INTERNATIONAL For too long, foresters have seen forests as logs waiting to be turned into something useful. This book demonstrates that forests in fact have multiple values, and managing them as ecosystems will bring more benefits to a greater cross-section of the public JEFFREY A. MCNEELY, CHIEF SCIENTIST, IUCN This book demonstrates that [ecosystem approaches and sustainable forest management] are neither alternative methods of forest management nor are they simply complicated ways of saying the same thing. They are both emerging concepts for more integrated and holistic ways of managing forests within larger landscapes in ways that optimize benefits to all stakeholders ACHIM STEINER AND IAN JOHNSON, FROM THE FOREWORD Recent innovations in Sustainable Forest Management and Ecosystem Approaches are resulting in forests increasingly being managed as part of the broader social-ecological systems in which they exist. Forests in Landscapes reviews changes that have occurred in forest management in recent decades. Case studies from Europe, Canada, the United States, Russia, Australia, the Congo and Central America provide a wealth of international examples of innovative practices. Cross-cutting chapters examine the political ecology and economics of forest management, and review the information needs and the use and misuse of criteria and indicators to achieve broad societal goals for forests. A concluding chapter draws out the key lessons of changes in forest management in recent decades and sets out some thoughts for the future. This book is a must-read for practitioners, researchers and policy makers concerned with forests and land use. It contains lessons for all those concerned with forests as sources of people's livelihoods and as part of rural landscapes. Published with IUCN and PROFOR

While there continues to be refinement in defining and assessing sustainable management, there remains the urgent need for policies that create the conditions that support sustainability and can halt or slow destructive practices already underway. Carol Colfer and her contributors maintain that standardized solutions to forest problems from afar have failed to address both human and environmental needs. Such approaches, they argue, often neglect the knowledge that local stakeholders have accumulated over generations as forest managers and do not address issues involving the diversity and well-being of groups within communities. The contributors note that these problems persist despite clear evidence that equity and social relationships, including gender roles, are important factors in the ways that communities adapt to change and manage forest resources overall. The Equitable Forest offers an alternative to traditional, externally organized strategies for forest management. Termed adaptive collaborative management (ACM), the approach tries to better acknowledge the diversity, complexity, and unpredictability of human and natural systems. ACM works to strengthen local institutions and use the knowledge and capacity of groups in local communities to enhance the health and well-being of both forests and the people who live in and around them. The Equitable Forest provides a detailed explanation of the descriptive, analytical, and methodological tools of ACM, along with accounts of early stages of its implementation in tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Although the contributors make it clear that it is too soon to evaluate the efficacy of ACM, their work is supported by evidence that rural communities do make important contributions when involved in formal forest management; that management strategies are most effective when flexible and tailored to local contexts; and that efforts by outside governmental and nongovernmental organizations to support local management are feasible from the policymaking perspective, and desirable for their impact on human, economic, and environmental well-being.

Forests are very important for the world's population and large and play critical role in the Earth's life support system, including global carbon and hydrological cycles. This publication provides an overview of the global trends in forest cover and looks specifically at the four largest forest ecosystems and analyses the trends and challenges in heir conservation and management. It scrutinises some of the key drivers behind forest loss, including the increasing demand for commodities and energy. Finally it reviews some of the best practices for sustainable management of forest, including regulatory regimes, participatory management and economic incentives.