Forest Management and Community Wellbeing

In recent years, a diversity of practices, approaches and policies for managing forests sustainably have been put forward. Despite these global efforts, we have yet to develop a thorough understanding of how best to reconcile the oft-competing interests of commercial forestry, biodiversity conservation and the health, social and economic development interests of local communities. On a human level, this can lead to a general lack of opportunity and even extreme poverty conditions. Our research focuses on identifying resource management models – both for developed and developing economies – to align these seemingly competing interests from the perspectives of land tenure and traditional land-use rights, poverty alleviation, conflict avoidance and biodiversity conservation. Integral to this, is developing a fact-based understanding of the key contributions that rural economies make to the larger public interest.