Coping with Resource Uncertainty: A New Challenge for Community Forestry Amidst Changing Socioeconomic Contexts

For more than two decades now, Asians have engaged in community-based forest management (CBFM) to protect tropical forests and to alleviate rural poverty. However, CBFM faces issues such as tenurial rights, access to resource use, and creating sustainable livelihood from degraded forest lands. Other barriers to CBFM include rapid social, political, and economic (global) changes/conflicts and loss of traditional knowledge. These issues hinder communities from getting the maximum benefits coming from the use of CBFM and rural livelihood. Uncertainty in access or use rights to resources, for example, discourage communities to fully participate in CBFM. However, when their rights are secured with clearly defined responsibilities, they tend to participate more in forest management.