Forested regions in the developing world have historically been the object of competing resource use claims by groups seeking to extract precious minerals, petroleum, timber or nontimber products, to access land for subsistence and commercial agricultural and ranching, to develop tourism activities and, recently, to protect threatened biodiversity and cultural treasures. In this context of intense competition to control and protect the forest, forest-dependent people and their livelihoods may be pitted against conservation or development objectives. Frequently local people are blamed for forest degradation, lose access to resources or are outright expelled. However, at other times they respond collectively to defend their interests and to maintain forests that support their livelihoods. The Grassroots Assistance Project examined the conditions under which such positive outcomes occur and the resulting impacts they produce.

CIFOR’s Grassroots Assistance Project examined environmental governance in cases where community-based groups have maintained control over forest resources, continue to base their livelihoods on forest use and have positively influenced conservation. Environmental governance refers not only to government laws and enforcement for conservation but also involves the political, organizational and cultural frameworks through which diverse interests in natural and cultural resources are coordinated and controlled. In recent years, Latin American grassroots community-based forest organisations have emerged that are helping to introduce a new social actor in the governance of protected areas: the forest steward community. These forest steward communities have attained significant legal and customary access and rights over forest resources. They are becoming a cornerstone of broad-based efforts to sustainably manage natural resources for conservation and development. The forest steward communities that compose these four grassroots organisations are showing that conservation and development need not be opposing strategies at the local level. Rather than being part of the deforestation problem, organised forest communities can potentially be key allies in solutions that protect and manage the environment for the future.

The Grassroots Assistance Project focused on four cases in Central America and the Brazilian Amazon in which rural community-based organisations have emerged from communities living in and around protected areas and have staked out central roles in natural resource management programs. They are:

• In Petén, Guatemala, the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) leads a movement of diverse community-based organisations that have won rights to manage forest concessions in the multiple-use zones of the Maya Biosphere Reserve.

• In Acre, Brazil, the struggle of rubber tappers to secure property rights to maintain their forest livelihoods has allowed rural communities like Cachoeira to gain recognition for their traditional landholdings. Residents have remained active participants collaborating with progressive governmental agencies in initiatives to develop forest-based alternatives.

• In the Siuna region of Nicaragua, the Farmer to Farmer Program (PCaC) has developed into a movement which enlists farmers near the BOSAWAS Biosphere Reserve into efforts to slow the advance of the agricultural frontier, to develop sustainable agroforestry and cattle raising, and to contribute to BOSAWAS’ ecological sustainability via peasant biological corridors.

• In the Brazilian state of Amazonas, communities faced with the inclusion of their traditional territories within the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve have been able to organise and negotiate a more equitable plan that allows them to remain and continue traditional extraction activities under sustainable management guidelines negotiated collaboratively.

Grassroots Context Studies: