In the past three decades, community forestry has taken root across Canada. Locally run initiatives have been lauded as welcome alternatives to large corporate and industrial logging practices, yet little research has been done to document their tangible outcomes or draw connections between their ideals of local control, community benefit, ecological stewardship, and economic diversification and the realities of community forestry practice. This book brings together the work of over twenty-five researchers to provide the first comparative and empirically rich portrait of community forestry policy and practice in Canada. Tackling all of the forestry regions from Newfoundland to BC, it unearths the history of community forestry, revealing surprisingly strong regional differences linked to patterns of policy-making and cultural traditions. Case studies celebrate innovative practices in governance and ecological management while uncovering significant challenges related to government support and market access. The future of the industry is also considered, including the role of institutional reform, multiscale networks, and adaptive management strategies.
nl
en