| Summary: | Community forestry is a concept whose time has finally 'come' to British Columbia through a
convergence of events including: recommendations from forestry commissions; high profile
international conferences and publications on sustainability; increased social awareness of forests and
forestry; and greater public pressure for community needs to be addressed.
This thesis investigates tenure arrangements to facilitate community forestry in British
Columbia. BC forest tenures have evolved over the last century and have timber management biases
leading to failures in addressing community forest management concerns. To date, community forestry
has not played a significant role in forest management in the province.
Community, culture, conflict and planning are highly interrelated concepts and understanding
their linkages is essential for successful forest and community planning. Community forestry, which
with its long history of success can be an integrated planning tool for sustainable forestry. International
community forestry is reviewed, with a particular focus on Sweden which has social and economic
similarities to Canada. National and provincial surveys are used to determine the levels of awareness
and understanding of community forestry.
While offering some advantages, there are limited opportunities to exploit existing tenures due
to their industrial focus and continuing policy failures, suggesting a need for new community forest
tenures. New community forest tenures offer the opportunity to avoid failures associated with previous
tenures and the ability to experiment. Community forestry principles are incorporated with theory,
literature and survey information to draft the characteristics of new tenures which offer a more effective
and flexible policy vehicle to facilitate community forestry. === Forestry, Faculty of === Graduate
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