Effective monitoring of decentralized forest resources in East Africa
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Date
2000
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Abstract
There is no doubt that state control of forest resources in many countries has proved to be
ineffective in solving and halting the rate of deforestation. The financial and human
resources available to government forest departments are inadequate to carry out the task
of policing forested areas without the participation of local communities .
However, the success of decentralizing resources to local communities depends on
solving three puzzles; the problem of supplying new institutions, the problem of credible
commitment and the problem of mutual monitoring.
IFRI, studies in Uganda have known that monitoring and rule enforcement is very
important for the success of decentralized forest resources (Banana and Gombya-
Ssembajjwe 1999). Trying to understand how use-groups and /or communities have
monitored their own conformance to their agreements as well as their conformance to the
rules in the E. African region is the challenge of this study.
The study revealed that an effective monitoring strategy involves having good incentives
for the monitors and a mechanism to supervise or monitor the monitors themselves.
Where effective was effective, there are few illegal activities, high basal area and the
physical and biological condition of the CPR was expected to improve with time.
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Keywords
Decentralized forest, Forest resources, Effective monitoring, East Africa, Forest resources control