Expansion

As commitment to community forestry grows, forest departments must develop the capacity to enlarge upon relatively small-scale activities and to support much larger programs. The programs that were established earliest, namely those in India and the Philippines, are now at a stage where they are expanding to reach larger numbers of people. Yet expansion—especially rapid expansion—can make even more acute the structural obstacles to social forestry that bureaucratic organizations face. As programs grow to encompass larger geographical areas, the need to respond to a wider variety of social, ecological, and economic conditions also grows, intensifying the constraints posed by uniform guidelines and centrally driven targets. Further, when funds must be disbursed quickly to a large number of sites, decision making tends to become more centralized, hindering the agency's flexibility.

In addition, the effort required to organize activities in a single community can be extremely demanding on the financial and human resources of the implementing agency. With rapid expansion, forest departments are learning that both time and capacity for effective staff training at the local level often are lacking. Agencies are now grappling with the challenge of expanding community forestry programs without sacrificing their essential character: namely, the capacity to respond to local social and ecological diversity and the capacity to give adequate attention to implementation.

Nongovernmental Organizations and Research Institutions: Their Roles