Current Overview of the Institutional Arrangements for Technical Assistance to Community Forest Management in Federal Conservation Units

Abstract

The community sustainable forest management, besides generating income for protected areas beneficiary families, presents itself as a strategy for the conservation of natural resources, as it conciliates the sustainable exploitation of the forest resources with the conservation and protection of the forest against illegal deforestation inside Conservation Units. In order to deal with the challenge of making community forestry projects viable, institutional arrangements focused on local communities were established and consolidated to provide the organization, the strength and the robustness that are needed to contribute to the success of the forestry resources sustainable use, with an integrated improvement of social, economic and environmental conditions. This essay provides a summary of the institutional arrangements made for community forestry management initiatives currently underway in some Federal Conservation Units, addressing areas of knowledge where qualified technical monitoring is essential, and also the governmental weaknesses to formalize institutional agreements. We conclude this essay by highlighting, from the set of institutional arrangements currently in progress, the importance of integrating and harmonizing expertise in areas that require technical qualification, social organization, and support for commercialization, as well as the need to implement transparent discussion instances, with broad participation of everyone involved in the activity. We emphasize that civil society institutions are the main, if not the only ones, to offer technical forestry assistance directly to the traditional communities, what highlights the negative consequences of the lack of a specifically consolidated and regulated forestry technical assistance policy. However, the current adverse scenario to formalize partnerships with civil society organizations undermines the conditions through which a forestry extension, with less burden to the power and with the due legal and institutional security, could be developed.