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iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry
Introduction
Approaches in community forestry managementCommunity forestry has shifted from traditional participatory, to participatory and collaborative management approaches that integrate local and scientific knowledge (e.g., Walters 1986, Maser 1996, Schreiber et al. 2004. The involvement of stakeholders to manage the forests as community forestry has become a widely accepted participatory management philosophy, along with the sustainability concept. In this regard, the concept of sustainability has become a dominant paradigm for the management of the remaining global forests, particularly tropical forests (Khadka & Vacik 2012). The concept of criteria and indicators (C&I) has produced an increasing number of initiatives, which has contributed to the promotion and achievement of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM), such as monitoring, reporting and management instruments at a global, national and community management level. In its early phase, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) began to develop C&I sets (ITTO 1992(ITTO , 1993 and as yet, nine eco-regional forestry processes have been established (Wijewardana 2008), involving 149 countries, whose combined forest area equals 97.5 percent of the world's total forest area. Among others, the Pan-European and the Montreal processes for temperate and boreal forests, dry zone Africa process for arid zones forests, the African Timber Organization (ATO) Process; the near east process and the regional initiatives for dry forests in Asia process.The traditional meaning of sustainability in terms of sustained yield was radically expanded (Glück 1995). Sustainable forest management is defined as "stewardship and use of forests and forest land in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, generation capacity, vitality, and their potential to fulfill now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic, and social functions at local, national, and global levels […]" (MCPFE 1993). However, there exists a wide variety of planning and management approaches which comprise different schools of thought and allow different impacts. Therefore, in community forest management the practical implementation of the planning approaches is often highly debated and a promising approach is hardly identified. In a traditional participatory planning and management approach, goals are set and one management strategy is selected as the optimal one (Linkov et al. 2006). It has been often criticized that in such a setting process information sharing is restricted, stereotypes are reinforced, and that a limited public involvement in the plan development, as well as win-lose solutions, are generally promoted (Friedmann 1973, Susskind & Cruiskshank 1987, Blahna & Yonts'-Shepard 1989, Maser 1996, Wondolleck & Yaffee 2000. Walters (1986) introduced the concept of an evolutionary ("trial and error") approach, which is closely linked to the traditional participatory approach, but starts with a haphazard set of choices ...
