Proceedings of the international workshop on reforming forest fiscal systems to promote poverty reduction, and sustainable forest management

Forests provide multiple benefits such as goods and services important to people's livelihoods, economic growth, foreign exchange earnings, and environmental services. The range of actors involved in the production and consumption of forest-based goods and services include governments, private industry, local communities, individual forest owners and their associations, and nongovernmental organizations. But too often the state formally manages, regulates, and prices these forests as an undervalued capital resource subject to the control of certain politically powerful groups and individuals. The design of instruments to implement forestry policy, including forest fiscal systems, consequently needs to take into account the multiple roles involved in forestry and the political process of directing toward the same overall goals a large number of actors with diverse and sometimes conflicting objectives and vested interests. This workshop was designed to contribute to the learning process among a selected group of tropical countries that are actively trying to implement forestry policies to achieve sustainable forest management where the forestry sector could potentially have a significant impact on poverty reduction. The workshop on which this report is based, 'reforms of forest fiscal systems to promote growth, poverty reduction, and sustainable forest management,' focused especially on the politics of the reform process, taking into account situations of vested interest, corruption and poor governance, and weak institutional structures.