The Equitable Forest: diversity and community in sustainable resource management.

• Position: BOOKS RECEIVED

Edited by Carol J. Pierce Colfer. 1616 P Street NW, Washington D.C. 20036-1400: RFF Press, 2005. (202) 328-5086. www.rffpress.org. ISBN 1-1891853-78-3. 331 pp. $29.95 Paperback.

The Equitable Forest offers an alternative to traditional, externally organized strategies for forest management. The approach described in The Equitable Forest, termed "adaptive collaborative management" (ACM), tries to better acknowledge the diversity, complexity, and unpredictability of human and natural systems. ACM works to strengthen local institutions and to use the knowledge and capacity of groups in local communities to enhance the health and well-being of both forests and the people who live in and around them.

The Equitable Forest provides a detailed explanation of the descriptive, analytical, and methodological tools of ACM, along with accounts of the early stages of its implementation in tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Although the contributors make it clear that it is too soon to evaluate the efficacy of...