The flak between poverty and environmental degradation is complex: both have deep and multiple causes
Sustainable forest management requires a delicate balance between protecting resources and providing opportunities for their use
The uniqueness of forestry
Two aspects of the forestry sector's contribution to sustainable development distinguish it from others concerned with natural resource management (Miranda et al., 1990). First, forestry has evolved from tree production to management of vast and complex ecosystems, with a wider set of concerns - the provision of a broad range of forest products, revenue generation, community forestry and local environmental benefits. Added to this is the growing concern about global environmental issues and the increasing public interest in the role that forestry can play in addressing some of the more acute problems.
The second unique aspect concerns resource control. The forestry sector, in addition to lying within the control of both the public and the private domain, must also deal with all of the gradations of common property ownership. This requires a delicate balance between protecting the resource and providing opportunities for its use, especially by the poor. The sector must determine which areas of the forest and which aspects of forest resource management would best be devolved to local groups and which should remain under the control of government authorities. The critical issue in the determination of property rights is whether the responsible forest institution can promote and strengthen the vested interest of the local population in the forest resource while, at the same time, accepting the idea of joint management or even local control of the resource in question.
Recent research indicates that there is more potential for success where the forest department introduces joint management of forest land, building on the mutual benefits to be obtained from greater access to forest products by local people and reduced protection costs for the forest department. This potential appears to be greater where the technical knowledge already exists at the local level and the missing ingredient is an effective agreement between the local organization and local representatives of the government (Arnold, 1991). Two main impediments to progress have been identified the unwillingness of forest departments to devolve responsibility to the local level, and the inward migration of outsiders eager to take advantage of the changing local situation (Seymour and Rutherford, 1990).