Towards Adaptive Community Forest Management: Integrating Local Forest Knowledge with Scientific Forestry

Abstract

"In a paired case study of community forests used for fuelwood, the paper will explore recent arguments about the synergy between traditional knowledge, common property systems, and adaptive management theory (Berkes, Folke, and Colding 1998).

"According to this theory, scientific and technological approaches to resource management often fail to encourage sustainable resource management because they are based on faulty models, limited goals, incomplete information, and an inadequate institutional foundation. Traditional resource-management systems, in contrast, often derived over time through a process of cultural learning, are frequently successful (Ostrom 1990). An integrated approach based on lessons from traditional systems combined with adaptive management theory could be more successful by providing a richer basis for institutional innovation while integrating local knowledge and monitoring into resource co-management.

"Many argue that the environmental knowledge and social practices of indigenous people, like the Purepecha in the state of Michoacan, should lead to sustainable resource management. In one of two neighboring Purepecha communities studied, emigration to US and Mexican cities is a dominant household survival strategy, and its forests are both more extensive and denser than in 1960. The other community specializes in pottery production requiring large amounts of pine firewood. Its forests are more extensive, but also thinner than they were in 1960. Analysis of forest inventories also reveal shifts in genus composition. Woodcutting in the pottery community leads to oak dominance, forcing woodcutters to invade their neighbor's territory to find the kind of fuel they need to fire their pottery.

"Contrasting the management philosophy and selection criteria of foresters and indigenous woodcutters in this case finds that, individually, neither is adequate for sustainable management. Appropriate implementation of an existing technical management plan requires additional information about the species local woodcutters target, participatory monitoring of forest response to woodcutting, an assessment of local forest knowledge and management goals, and better understanding of existing social structures and political organization.

"Co-management is more likely to lead to the integration of local knowledge, scientific resource management, and institutional adaptability to local conditions and change for fuelwood production in Mexican forests. This approach will require higher levels of collaborative, participatory technical assistance from the state or NGOs than currently exists, however."