| Description |
1 online resource (v, 47 pages) : color illustrations, color maps |
| Summary |
Communities are making unprecedented gains worldwide in forest resource access and management rights. A new conservation actor, the forest steward community, is emerging in Central America as an effective collaborator in forest conservation. How best to support and strengthen this community-based conservation actor while minimizing external dependency? This paper discusses an experience with innovative participatory research in Guatemala and Nicaragua that aimed to strengthen community capabilities in natural resource management. The Grassroots Assistance Project trained community members to document and critically reflect upon local experience with forest management and external assistance. Together with regional context studies undertaken by professional researchers, these local 'autosystematization' studies made possible comprehensive documentation of the multiple dimensions of communities' resource management, identification of their strengths and vulnerabilities and discussion of future strategies. Their endeavours also reveal an emerging alternative 'accompaniment' approach to technical assistance, which promotes a high level of partnership between communities and external institutions, in contrast to traditional assistance, which often creates dependency. Technical 'accompaniment' emphasizes long-term social processes, shared learning, community empowerment, validation of local knowledge and continual strengthening of organizational capabilities. It also suggests organizing assistance to pursue closer proximity to communities and their processes, flattening of technical staff hierarchies, flexible response to community input, more horizontal information exchange, and incorporation of social process indicators into assessment. Employed in combination with more traditional assistance approaches, the technical 'accompaniment' approach holds promise for strengthening communities' capabilities as key allies in protecting and managing the environment for the future |
| Notes |
"Forests and Governance Programme no. 14/2008." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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Print version record |
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digitized 2017 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
| Subject |
Forests and forestry -- Central America
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Forest management -- Central America
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Sustainable forestry -- Central America
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Forest policy -- Central America
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Forest management.
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Forest policy.
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Forests and forestry.
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Sustainable forestry.
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Central America.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Taylor, Peter Leigh, 1959-
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Forests and Governance Programme
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Center for International Forestry Research.
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| ISBN |
9791412502 |
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9789791412506 |
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