Abrar Juhar Mohammed
Laboratory of Global Forest Environmental Studies, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan

Series: Environmental Research Advances
BISAC: SCI026000

Tropical deforestation and rural poverty are among the major apprehensions of developing nations in the 21st century. The protectionist paradigm that had dominated nature conservation since the 19th century is replaced by a strong notion that poverty reduction and environmental protection should go hand in hand. Decentralization is among the key polices devised to achieve these dual objectives of forest governance.

This book presents the role decentralized forest governance can contribute to address the aforementioned problems by comparing and contrasting three forms of decentralization, i.e. deconcentration, delegation and devolution in Ethiopia. Owning to the alarming rate of deforestation and the large number of biodiversity hosted by the remnant forests, the Ethiopian forests are included in global biodiversity hot-spots by Conservation International. The country is also well known for recurrent poverty. Consequently, it is a perfect candidate to investigate the linkage among decentralized forest governance, forests and poverty.

To make the analysis, the book introduced a Modified Actor-Power-Accountability Framework (MAPAF). The framework is applicable to analyze decentralized natural resource governance in general and forests in particular. The original Actor- Power- Accountability Framework (APAF) developed by Agrawal and Ribot (1999) has been one of the most influential tools in analyzing extent of democratization from a given decentralized natural resource governance.

The MAPAF atone for the following identified shortcomings of the original APAF: failure to give sufficient attention to shift in property right due to decentralization; absence of linkage between the extents of democratization with outcomes from decentralization; lack of consideration of contextual factors; and negligence of feedback from the policy analysis. The book, by applying the MAPAF to analyze and compare the three decentralization forest policy in Ethiopia, shows the strength of the framework for exploratory, explanatory, descriptive as well as comparative studies of decentralized forest policy. It also gives special methodological emphasis for how to do robust case studies. Finally, it provided viable policy option for Ethiopia and any other countries with a similar situation.

Overall, the book covers an interdisciplinary work that incorporated theories from Sustainable Development; Forest Policy, Forest Governance, Rural Development; Rural Livelihoods; Public Policy; Environmental Policy; and Forestry. In addition to its importance for policy makers and practitioners, the book can also be used for undergraduate as well as post graduate studies. Furthermore, it is written to be understandable by novice readers. (Imprint: Nova)