List some forest policies and its side effects
Answers
Forest policies leading to centralization in different countries of the region had a number of impacts that had cascading effects on the forests of the countries concerned. Some of the impacts such as forest land alienation from the forest users, commercial over-exploitation, over dependency on technocracy and policing, and adverse reaction of forest dependent people have caused and are still causing tremendous forest damages such as reduction of the extent of the forests, the deterioration of their quality and loss of biodiversity.
In contrast, some of the other impacts have played useful roles. These include rise of environmentalists' and green lobbies world over and local revolts. These latter impacts are beneficial as these have forced some governments to take initiatives that may finally reverse the process of damage and bring into focus the need of changes in policy and implementation to bring forth devolution in forest management. The experience of PNG, where forest management was not decentralized had however been different which will be discussed in the section discussing new initiatives.