The Project

A core aspect of community-based forestry is building the capacity of local people with vested interest, experience, and knowledge to be stewards of forest ecosystem in ways that promote of social and economic well-being – their own as well as current and future generations of broader society.

In 2000, the Ford Foundation initiated the Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program to help communities build forest and natural resource assets in order to provide sustainable new jobs and enterprises, increase family income, revitalize land-based cultures, and improve ecosystem health.

Financial and technical support were provided to 13 “Implementing Partners” across the U.S. to initiate or enhance innovative tools and strategies that would lead to the demonstration program’s goals. The Implementing Partners were:

• Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters, Willow Creek, California
• DC Greenworks, Washington, D.C.
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Landowner Assistance Fund, Epes, Alabama
• Healthy Forests Healthy Communities (program of Sustainable Northwest), Portland, Oregon
• Jobs and Biodiversity Coalition, Silver City, New Mexico
• Makah Tribal Forestry, Neah Bay, Washington
• North Quabbin Woods, Orange, Massachusetts
• Penn Center, St. Helena Island, South Carolina
• Public Lands Partnership, Delta, Colorado
• Rural Action, Trimble, Ohio
• Vermont Family Forests Partnership, Bristol, Vermont
• Wallowa Resources, Enterprise, Oregon
• Watershed Research and Training Center, Hayfork, California

In 2004, the Ford Foundation provided financial support to Colorado State University to convene a multi-disciplinary research team to work with Implementing Partners on research questions of mutual interest. The research component was based on a participatory research approach in which researchers and practitioners alike are joint investigators into mutually defined research question. An Extended Research Advisory Team helped guide the research team and provided resources. Five general research questions were identified:

• What organizational structures, styles, and strategies have been particularly effective in helping CBF groups bridge gaps in forest management and communities’ capacities? What does it mean to institutionalize CBF?
• What are the roles of ecological knowledge, monitoring, and stewardship in community-based forestry?
• Does CBF help community members’ capacity to create and take advantage of new opportunities? If so, how?
• Does CBF change people’s access to resources, roles in decision-making, and the benefits they receive from forest use? If so, how? How do these changes shape who benefits?
• How does CBF affect the well-being of the communities with which they work, especially the full social costs and benefits of CBF efforts?