The conditions pertaining to both rural development and forestry have changed fundamentally over recent decades. The challenges associated with globalization offer up new options but also threats to rural development, especially in developing countries. Occupying about one third of the global land cover, forests are not only home to a significant population of indigenous people and forest farmers, but also provide important services and goods necessary for overall socio-economic development. Simultaneously, forestry depends much on the prevailing framework conditions and policies for rural development. The compilation of various perspectives on current challenges of and innovative solutions for rural development and forestry in one book is a worthwhile undertaking, because to understand the complexity of this relationship a holistic view is required, a view which may then allow us to learn from past experiences and derive scenarios for future development. This book is embedded in a constructivist approach referring to various development strategies, their implementation and evaluation. It is assumed that the formulation of future development paths will need to be based upon several prerequisites, namely the availability of both traditional and modern technical knowledge, the qualified implementation of land use management processes as well as innovative institution building (Walker et al. 2002). The constructivist philosophy