How enacting innovative and equitable laws and policies concerning community-based forest management can help local forest-dependent communities ensure that their interests are fairly considered in forest planning and management decisions. Interest in and experience with sustainable community-based forest management (CBFM) has increased markedly during the past decade. This has been paralleled by recognition that authentic and widespread official support for CBFM depends, to a large degree, on strong civil society organizations and on the existence of pluralistic societies. Support for pluralism is an explicit acknowledgement of the many interests and perspectives regarding natural resource management, and rightly implies that the aspirations and rights of rural people directly dependent on forest resources have been overlooked for too long and merit immediate attention. This article first presents a brief theoretical reflection on pluralism, based on the author's experience in promoting public-interest human rights and environmental law and institutions in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. It then explores how the enactment of innovative and equitable laws and policies concerning community-based forest management, especially the legal recognition of community-based property rights, can help provide necessary leverage to local forest-dependent communities so that their interests are fairly represented in forest planning and management decisions. It concludes with a summary of recommendations made by representatives of Asian non-govern-mental organizations (NGOs) that advocate sustainable CBFM.
