Indigenous Forest Management: Collection of Cases from Southwest China”

This paper presents a collection of cases, through extensive field surveys with villagers, village leaders, forest guards and forest department officials, on indigenous/common forest management practiced by Naxi in Lijiang, Yunnan; Miao (Hmong) in Libo, Guizhou; and Yao in Jinxiu in Gunagix, including the tenure and management arrangements, their strengths and weaknesses, their effectiveness; examines the challenges the indigenous arrangements are facing; and explores that adaptations they need to complement with the mainstream arrangements and play greater roles in a changing world. The paper starts from a brief presentation about the mainstream tenure and management arrangements, and then discusses indigenous forest management on a comparative basis.