Introduction

The plight of tropical forests has caused intense international concern during the past two decades. Attention has focused chiefly on resource degradation, declining biodiversity, and the effects of decreasing forest resources on the global climate. Less international attention has been devoted to the implications of diminishing forest resources for local people who depend on forests for their livelihoods, although national governments in many countries have been developing programs that address the twin concerns of poverty and environment. In Asia, many forest-dependent people are among their nations' poorest. Because public forest areas tend to be in remote locations, transportation is often difficult, markets are distant, and public services such as schools and health care are limited. Land is usually sloping or otherwise marginally suited for intensive cultivation of crops. These conditions severely limit villagers' economic opportunities. In addition, villagers living in or near forest reserves tend to have little voice or representation in political decision making. Many are ethnic minorities with a history of strained relations with their governments.

Forest villagers have had few formal legal rights to use forests, let alone a voice in how governments manage forest lands. Under the former colonial regimes of many Asian countries, forests were declared public lands in order to generate revenue for the state. Postcolonial governments often have continued to refer to people living on public forest lands as "squatters," or to accuse them of "illegal use," even when land rights are in dispute because of an indigenous community's claims to prior, ancestral rights.

Government forest departments also tend to be highly centralized, top-down structures that focus more on timber production and preserving forest reserves than on the forestry needs of local villagers. Historically, governments have sought to keep villagers off forest lands, often by using forest guards to patrol protected areas, or by levying fines against "violators" to discourage land clearing and timber harvesting. Since the 1970s, growing worldwide awareness of deforestation and increasing pressures for