Communities all over the world have legal rights to forests around them, but who is helping to enable them to overcome the regulatory burden so they can actively manage and benefit from these forests?
Expanding Capacity Where It Is Needed Most
Today, over one-third of the world’s forests are managed or claimed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, yet these communities often lack access to the legally required technical forestry capacity needed to translate legal rights into effective forest management.
At the same time, new global priorities — from climate finance to biodiversity monitoring and large-scale fire mitigation — are dramatically increasing the regulatory burden with regard to technical expertise.
The result is a growing mismatch between rights, ambition and capacity.
Without formally recognised local technical capacity, these forests remain vulnerable to degradation and communities are excluded from active forest management livelihood opportunities.
Paraforesters address this implementation gap by building a new, locally rooted technical workforce for forest landscapes.
The Opportunity
As global transfers of forests to Indigenous peoples and communities continue to grow, the demand for local technical capacity will only increase.
By developing a scalable cadre of locally trained forest personnel, Paraforesters will help ensure that transfers of forests will translate into durable outcomes for communities, climate and biodiversity.
Building this human network may be one of the most important - and overlooked - investments needed to support the future of forest landscapes worldwide.
Why This M.O. Matters
Complementing the Forestry Profession
Paraforesters will assist and complement—not replace—professional foresters.
Just as other sectors have developed additional professional tiers to expand access to essential services, the paraforesters model creates a locally rooted cadre who can implement day-to-day forest management and monitoring within communities.
Professional foresters remain essential for training, quality control, advanced technical guidance, research, and policy. Paraforesters help extend that expertise into landscapes where it is often difficult to maintain a continuous or cost-effective presence.
Together, these roles can strengthen and scale up forest stewardship systems by combining professional expertise, local knowledge, and sustained on-the-ground capacity.
We Need to Meet the Scale That is Necessary
The coming decades will require unprecedented efforts to actively manage and protect forests and monitor ecosystem health. Achieving these goals will depend not only on funding and policy, but also on people with the accredited skills to carry out the work on the ground in ways that meet local regulations.
Paraforesters contribute to this effort by helping expand the human capacity needed to comply with regulations - working alongside and under professional foresters, with communities and institutions to actively steward healthy forest landscapes for generations to come.
