Community Engagement in Forest Care: What it Means to the People in the Forest

Abstract

In today’s forest management system, the state and its departments constitute the majority stakeholders in forest care. They have ignored the conservation role of forest communities in the forest. This practice has already bred narratives about our environment: declining biodiversity, the commodification of nature, land conflicts, overlapping forest ownership, and indigenous claims to land rights in the forest. This scenario deserves attention. What is crucial and necessary is to present an alternative view to mainstream thinking on the forest management system (state control). It is for this reason that there has been a surge call to reform forest planning by engaging indigenous people in the ongoing narratives of forest discussions.