Allies for subsistence: poverty alleviation in community forestry limited by powerful actors

Over one billion people in the world depend on forests to meeting livelihood needs and more than half of them engage in community based forest management. Community forestry has the potential of making important contributions in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, however, their positive effects on local livelihoods has been questioned. Actors, with their interests and power balance can be important factors explaining the success of community forestry by shaping the decision-making process. Hence, the aim of our study was to analyze the economic performance of community forestry across the world, through its contribution to poverty reduction and explain how the economic outcome relates to the interests of the powerful actors. Community forestry from seven countries were analyzed including cases in Asia (Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam), Africa (Namibia and Cameroon) and Europe (Germany and Albania). Data was collected with a sequence design method aiming to identify the participating actors and their power. A multivariate principal components analysis was conducted to capture the power dynamics within each community forestry. Results showed that community forestry programs do not always lead to poverty alleviation. The economic outcomes can be linked to the interests of the most powerful actors which in most cases do not desire a high economic outcome but rather promote contributions only to subsistence level.