Small Forests Owners and Sustainable Forest Practices

Small forest landowners manage millions of hectares of forestland around the world and therefore must be included in efforts to promote sustainable forest management. With the exception of a few well-coordinated groups (Confederation of European Private Forest Owners, American Tree Farm System, and some local and regional cooperatives), small and family forest landowners tend to be heterogeneous and beyond the reach of most conventional mechanisms to promote and recognize sustainable management  TFD has begun a dialogue series to catalogue the barriers faced by smallholders, to identify available sustainable management tools, and to explore the mechanisms by which markets can recognize landowners for sound practices.