Improving Decentralised Forest Governance Through Polycentric Systems: A Case Study of Kenya's Community Forest Management

Community-Based Forest Management is a tool for local participation in forest management. Community involvement and stakeholder participation became important components of development and natural resource management, prompting developing countries to undertake decentralisation reforms by the 1990s. The reforms aimed to encourage participatory development, local empowerment and poverty reduction, democratisation, and resource sustainability. Their performance has, however, been mixed. Decentralisation efforts have suffered in situations where powerful actors, through various strategies, have managed to retain control over natural resources, obstructing power transfers to the communities. This has resulted in Responsibilisation, which is the transfer of responsibility to local communities without the transfer of requisite power. Responsive, collaborative governance is crucial in efforts to avoid responsibilisation. This refers to governance that devolves responsibilities and powers together, providing the requisite capabilities and support, enabling appropriate management decisions and actions at the devolved levels. Polycentric governance is crucial towards this end. Participatory Forest Management, a modality of Community-Based Forest Management, has been practised in Kenya since the Forest Act of 2005. This paper looks at forest polycentric governance institutional structures with cross-level interactions and representation bodies at each level of forest governance for successful social and ecological outcomes. This paper's product is a proposed forest polycentric governance institutional structure for better social and ecological outcomes in Kenya, which can be generalised to broader cases.