Understanding Community-Based Forest Ecosystem Management

Abstract This paper synthesizes key issues identified and explored by a mix of practitioners, researchers, and resource managers who participated in a workshop designed to understand community-based ecosystem management. The interdependence between healthy ecosystems and community well-being lies at the heart of community-based ecosystem management. Core ideas focus on linking stewardship to the unique role that local communities and workers can play in its implementation; developing social and institutional processes that are more open, democratic and civil; monitoring ecosystem, social, and economic subsystems and modifying actions based on what is learned; empowering communities to strengthen their participation in natural resource management and address power imbalances; and developing a new understanding and valuation of the broad array of ecosystem products and services. The paper concludes with a discussion of ways community-based ecosystem management can be advanced, including: emphasizing the essential role of communities and workers in sustainable resource management; maintaining and building community capacity; improving understanding of worker issues and promoting an ecosystem workforce; establishing local and institutional processes that are inclusive, accessible and transparent; creating a civic science that respects and engages diverse people and knowledge systems; establishing new public and private approaches to long-term investment in ecosystem restoration and maintenance and in community-based stewardship; and advancing laws and policies that promote collaboration and coordination needed for long-term stewardship.