Assessing local knowledge of forests

In the past, forest subsistence communities were the primary stewards of the land, and they relied on land use practices based on generations of experience working within the ecological capacity of the land.

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.

Agenda 21 recommends carrying out surveys and research on local/indigenous knowledge of trees and forests and their uses in order to improve the planning and implementation of sustainable forest management.

1. (1) With the nationalization of forest lands, forest communities are often considered encroachers and poachers as official boundaries and regulations conflict with their traditional use areas.

   (2) Forest agencies are increasingly learning that indigenous community systems already exist that regulate access and protection, resource extraction and distribution, and that in such cases it is an imposition to demand new committees be formed to fit agency requirements for registration.

1. Assessing
2. Investigating-Discovering

1. Using local knowledge in planning agricultural industries
2. Protecting forests
3. Involving local communities in the conservation of plant genetic resources
4. Expanding social forestry

1. Nonlocal
2. Knowledge