Identification and Analysis of Stakeholders in the Context of Forests: Implications for Forestry Extension and Rural Development

Depletion of natural forests in mountainous areas of Pakistan is one of the most serious environmental issues. Despite being the implementation of numerous development and extension projects to protect and develop forests, the rate of forest depletion is still very high in Pakistan. The failure of forest related projects in meeting their intended objectives calls for investigating the causes of the ineffectiveness of these projects. Thus, the study aimed to analyse the stakeholders' roles and interactions viz., implementing agencies, donor agencies, implementing collaborates and beneficiaries of forest related projects. The objectives were: 1) to identify major stakeholders at multiple levels in the context of forest related development projects; 2) to assess the perceptions of stakeholders regarding poverty environment nexus; 3) to identify the interactions among different organizations and actors in terms of activities and institutions; 4) to asses sphere of influence of involved stakeholders and the objectives pursued by them with regard to poverty and to environment.

Author did his masters with the collaboration of NCCR (Swiss National Centre of Competence)and SDF (Sustainable Development Foundation, Islamabad)from the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad in 2008. After masters, he got funding from UAF for PhD. Currently, he is doing PhD from the University of Western Australia.