The report, titled "Reforming Forest Tenure: Issues, Principles and Process," highlights the role of forest tenure reform in achieving sustainable forest management and improved livelihoods, noting the importance of accompanying reform with capacity building and supportive measures to forest users.
10 June 2011: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a report titled “Reforming Forest Tenure: Issues, Principles and Process,” which reviews current status and challenges related to tenure of forested lands, and lists ten principles for reform.
The report highlights the role of forest tenure reform in achieving sustainable forest management and improved livelihoods, noting the importance of accompanying reform with capacity building and supportive measures to forest users. The report calls for support for traditional forest management arrangements, and flexibility for forest users to develop their own management systems suited to their particular circumstances.
Through analysis of world-wide experiences, the report delivers ten principles it recommends should be applied when reforming tenure: adopting an adaptive and multi-stakeholder approach; including tenure reform in a wider reform agenda; paying attention to social equity; recognizing customary rights and systems; developing an enabling regulatory framework; securing tenure; drafting simple compliance procedures; enforcing minimum standards for forest management; ensuring good governance; and putting in place supportive measures so that all stakeholders are aware of their rights and responsibilities. The report also discusses implications of tenure reform for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. [Publication: Reforming Forest Tenure: Issues, Principles and Process]