Natural Resources International

There is growing recognition that centralized forest regimes, which exclude local knowledge and customary practices, have not achieved sustainable forest management. Most countries of Eastern and Southern Africa are reviewing and revising policies and laws and restructuring their agencies to accommodate emerging forest management imperatives.

Produced by IUCN's Eastern Africa Programme, this publication aims to investigate the extent to which communities have been provided with economic incentives to become involved in sustainable forest management in Eastern and Southern Africa, and how far perverse incentives and disincentives encouraging forest degradation and loss have been overcome. This study concludes that there is an urgent need to provide economic incentives, and it highlights a number of policy recommendations.

The way in which forest land is owned directly influences the status of the forest, its condition and the way in which it is managed. The greater the security of local forest tenure, the stronger the interest and will of the community towards its security.