1. Five Key Challenges for
Sustainable Forest Governance
Han van Dijk
Wageningen University
CIAT Meeting, World Forest Day
March 21, 2013

2. Five key challenges to promote
sustainable management of forests
 Climate change mitigation through forests
 Knowledge base
 REDD+ and forest tenure reform
 Gender equity
 Multiple uses of forest

3. 1. Mitigation of climate change through
forests and trees
• Importance of forests for carbon storage
Renewable resource
Managed in a sustainable way
• Wood versus fossil fuels
• How to build more productive forests in terms of
production and carbon storage?
• Local actors and global outcomes

4. Mangrove area in Mekong Delta, Vietnam

5. Shrimp cultivation in a mangrove forest or mangroves
in a shrimp pond … Vietnam

6. 2. Knowledge base
• How to link the outcomes of local actions to
these global problems
• Remote sensing technologies that can be
downscaled
• And local case-studies that can be up-scaled
• Enormous methodological challenges

7. 3. REDD+ and forest tenure reform
• Who is going to benefit?
• Who can claim rights?
• Two opposite tendencies: recentralization and
devolution of rights
• Fundamental conflicts between forest-dependent
populations and the ‘state’
• If the ‘state’ is not present

8. Forest land in Rajasthan, India

9. Farmland in Uganda: Mount Elgon

10. 4. Gender equity
• Forestry is a sector dominated by males
• A lot of attention has been given over the
years to gender issues
• Yet:
– Crucial issues in forest tenure reform: may lead to
marginalization
– NTFPs: how to make it an integral part of
sustainable forest management

11. Tribal women in India

12. Tubu pastoralists in Central Chad in a forest area

13. 5. Multiple uses of forest
• Multiple use is a reality all over the globe
• It is often about marginal groups (women,
pastoralists, hunters-gatherers)
• Better engage than antagonize
• Needs to be introduced in governance
arrangements for forests