CONTRIBUTION OF PARTICIPATORY FOREST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOOD IMPROVEMENT OF THE LOCAL COMMUNITY: A REVIEW FROM SUB SAHARAN AFRICA

Abstract

Environmental resource commons governance in general, and forest resource commons, in particular, require attention to ensure sustainable development. There are two dominant contending views in this regard, one is the tragedy of the commons authored by Garrett Hardin and the other is the intuitionalist approach owned by Ellinor Ostrom. Without forests, it is difficult to think of the life of the agrarian society which means the life of the rural people in one way or the other highly attached to forests. The aim of this seminar paper is to show whether a participatory forest management approach has enhanced forest coverage and improved the communities’ livelihood in Sub-Saharan African states or not. This review is based on a secondary source analysis of some selected Sub-Saharan African States. The analysis result shows that in most Sub-Saharan African states the contribution of Community Based Forest Management or Participatory Forest Management (PFM) approach is positive except for Tanzania and Malawi where research evidence shows that the poor household income is not changed. In some instances, there is intra-state variation due to problems with implementation. Generally stated, compared to state-controlled forest management, a participatory forest management system is more useful for forest sustenance. Also from an income perspective, it helped to diversify income sources, increase household income levels, and build household assets in the forest-dependent communities. A recent report by the Federal authority in Ethiopia showed that forest coverage has increased from 3 to 4% to 17.2 % by the effort of the various bodies understandably in which PFM institution has a share. In order to ensure forest resource sustenance via Participatory Forest Management Approach, there should all stakeholders’ participation mainly the poor forest-dependent communities should be heard in all the processes of policymaking and implementation