Understanding and protecting our forest tenure rights and privileges

Book excerpt: This guide is designed to be used primarily by local community leaders to train the communities they lead. These leaders include district and lower Local Government officials, local council members, civil society staff working at community level, and executive committee members of community institutions, among others. The guide responds to a need for the active participation of local communities in securing and guarding their forest tenure rights through pro-active and innovative actions of empowered and well-informed local community members. The need was identified in the Global Comparative Study on Securing Tenure Rights for Forest Dependent Communities carried out by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) over a period of 4 years (2015–2018). An empowered and well-informed local community would be confident about the rights they have under the law, and be prepared to defend them. And building this confidence with respect to their forest tenure rights involves equipping them with relevant knowledge. This guide is designed to provide the training needed to build this confidence.