Canada is experiencing an unparalleled crisis involving forests and communities across the country. While municipalities, policy makers, and industry leaders acknowledge common challenges such as an overdependence on U.S. markets, rising energy costs, and lack of diversification, no common set of solutions has been developed and implemented. Ongoing and at times contentious public debate has revealed an appetite and need for a fundamental rethinking of the relationships that link our communities, governments, industrial partners, and forests.
The community forest is one path that promises to build social, economic, and ecological resilience. This model provides local control over common forest-lands in order to activate resource development opportunities, benefits, and social responsibilities. Implementing community forestry in practice has proven to be a complex task, however: there are no road maps or well-developed and widely-tested models for community forestry in Canada. But in settings where community forests have taken hold, there is a rich and growing body of experience to draw on.
Growing Community Forests brings leading researchers, practitioners, Indigenous representatives, government representatives, local advocates, and students together to share resources, and tools to forest communities, policy makers, and industry.
- Growing Community Forests: An Introduction
- Characterizing Institutional Diversity in Canada's Community Forests
- Transformative Community Organizing for Community Forests: The Northern Ontario Sustainable Communities Partnership
- Thirty Years of Community Forestry in Ontario: Bridging the Gap Between Communities and Forestry
- Factors Affecting Success in a First Nation, Government, and Forest Industry Collaborative Process
- Northeast Superior Regional Chiefs' Forum: A Community Forestry Framework Development Process
- The Local Trap and Community Forestry Policy in Nova Scotia: Pitfalls and Promise
- Community Forestry on the Cusp of Reality in New Brunswick
- The British Columbia Community Forest Association: Realizing Strength in Regional Networking
- Harrop-Procter Community Forest: Learning How to Manage Forest Resources at the Community Level
- Fire and Water: Climate Change Adaption in the Harrop-Procter Community Forest
- Maple Syrup Value Systems and Value Chains: Considering Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Perspectives
- The Economic Advantage of Community Forestry
Ryan Bullock is an Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Director, Centre for Forest Interdisciplinary Research, University of Winnipeg.
Gayle Broad is an Associate Professor, Community Economic and Social Development program, and Director of Research, NORDIK Institute, Algoma University.
Lynn Palmer is a PhD candidate, Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University.
Peggy Smith is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Interim Vice-Provost (Aboriginal Initiatives), Lakehead University.
"Rural and small-town resource-dependent regions are struggling with transformation and change in the new economy. The expansion of community forest initiatives over the past decades have been one mechanism by which local goals and values can be linked to the use of a community's forested surroundings. Within a growing literature, this book is a welcome, diverse, and timely addition which provides a ready and valuable reference to community forests and community forestry in Canada."
– Greg Halseth, Geography, University of Northern British Columbia