Ju¨rgen Pretzsch
Dietrich Darr
Holm Uibrig
Eckhard Auch
Michael Köhl, Hamburg, Germany
Description:
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