Forest Peoples Programme

Forest Peoples Programme

Forests cover 31% of total land area of the planet. Of that, 12% are designated for the conservation of biological diversity and nearly all are inhabited. Many of the peoples, who live in and have customary rights to their forests, have developed ways of life and traditional knowledge that are attuned to their forest environments. Yet, forest policies commonly treat forests as empty lands controlled by the state and available for ‘development’ – colonisation, logging, plantations, dams, mines, oil wells, gas pipelines and agribusiness. These encroachments often force forest peoples out of their forest homes. Many conservation schemes to establish wilderness reserves also deny forest peoples’ rights. Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) advocates an alternative vision of how forests should be managed and controlled, based on respect for the rights of the peoples who know them best. FPP works with forest peoples in South America, Africa, and Asia, to help them secure their rights, build up their own organisations and negotiate with governments and companies as to how economic development and conservation are best achieved on their lands.

Read more about Forest Peoples Programme:  History, Vision, Mission, Goals, Principles, Work Themes, Publications, Funding

Famous quotes containing the words forest, peoples and/or programme:

    This land is your land, this land is my land,
    From California to the New York Island.
    From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
    This land was made for you and me.
    Woody Guthrie (1912–1967)

    The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)