Forests play many roles in the development of a country, and especially in securing the livelihoods of people who live in and around them. Forest ecosystems are one of the greatest sources of biodiversity, but they are more fragile than many know. In particular, the natural forests of South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America are rapidly vanishing. Although the international community has issued policy responses for sustainable forest management, forest degradation has not been halted in most developing countries. This situation requires a comprehensive analysis of the political economy of forest governance and an examination of the underlying causes of deforestation.
Pakistan’s forestry sector serves as an interesting case study for such an analysis in the South Asian context. Deforestation in Pakistan is one of the highest in the world, despite rigorous institutional changes in forest management paradigms. This paper attempts to provide an exploratory analysis of forest governance and deforestation and its consequences in Pakistan, to examine the interaction between forests and local livelihoods, and to identify the factors responsible for deforestation and the ineffectiveness of state forest management strategies. The paper argues that some of the main barriers to effective and sustainable forest management are a lack of understanding of local livelihood strategies, lack of political will on the part of state actors, lack of a sense of ownership of forests by the local communities, and the presence of powerful timber smugglers.
