Globalisation, localisation and tropical forest management

Tropical forest management is facing new challenges. New actors and partnerships for the conservation and sustainable management of forests have been formed and are operating at multiple scales. These new global-local partnerships received an impulse through: globalisation, which connects local communities with international actors such as environmental NGOs and research organisations lending support to sustainable forest use; and localisation (i.e. decentralisation, democratisation, devolution of power and political autonomy for indigenous people), which creates new actors in environmental management.

Dealing with these questions, the articles in this issue are organised under several headings. These include:

• Globalisation, Localisation and Tropical Forest Management: introducing the challenge of new markets and new partnerships;
• The Feasibility of Payments for Ecosystem Services;
• Opportunities for Forest Markets to Benefit Local Low-Income Producers;
• Greeting (Trans)National Logging Companies? Strategies to Combat Illegal and Unsustainable Logging;
• Certification and Tropical Forestry;
• Linking Global Conservation Objectives and Local Use of Forest and Wildlife Resources;
• Global-Local Partnerships for Conservation and Sustainable Forest Use: A Latin American Perspective
• The Impact of Decentralisation on Forest Resources Management;
• A Learning Perspectives on Partnerships;
• In Collaborative Forest Management.