INDIGENOUS EXPLOITATION AND MANAGEMENT OF TROPICAL FOREST RESOURCES -AN EVOLUTIONARY CONTINUUM IN FOREST-PEOPLE INTERACTIONS

Since the early 1980s several new approaches towards forest management , which include active participation of local communities, have been t ried out in many tropical regions. As a result of these efforts recogn ition has increased about the various ways in which many local communi ties are already actively managing their forest resources. The plannin g of development interventions to stimulate more efficient community i nvolvement in forest management can often be based on such indigenous forest management systems. This paper aims to improve the understandin g about the diversity and dynamics of indigenous forest management. Th e analysis consists of three parts. First an overview of the various t ypes of indigenous forest management and their dynamics is presented. Subsequently, the basic principles of forest management are discussed. Forest management is characterized as involving a set of both technic al activities and social arrangements for the protection and utilizati on of forest resources and the distribution of forest products. Three major categories of forest management practices are identified, e.g. c ontrolled utilization of forest products, protection and maintenance o f forest stands, and purposeful regeneration. The practices in the fir st category are both socially and biologically oriented, whereas the a ctivities of the last two categories are biologically oriented. These principles are then used to develop a classification model of the vari ous evolutionary phases in forest management. Along the lines of a sim ilar model developed for exploitation of agricultural crops, various s tages of forest management are distinguished along a gradient of incre asing input of human energy per unit of exploited forest. This gradien t represents a continuum of forest-people interactions; it illustrates how the various manifestations of indigenous forest management may be arranged along a nature-culture continuum. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.