Land, Society and Governance

The ECI Ecosystem Governance Programme seeks to strengthen our understanding of how state and non-state institutions and actors shape decisions about the conservation and use of forests, and about the interface of forests with other land uses. This research encompasses a wide diversity of governance institutions and networks, from intergovernmental processes, to government agencies, to market-based sustainability certification, to locally based and indigenous resource management. A core aim of our research is to better understand how governance systems organize and distribute decision-making authority across conflicting interests, from the local to global scale, and the resulting impacts of such systems on forests and people.