National and International Forest Protection Initiatives

Abstract

As was seen earlier, neither the impacts of nor the responses to deforestation are limited to local communities. There have been numerous national and international initiatives to protect the remaining forests in developing countries and to reforest denuded areas. A few of these conservation efforts in the case-study countries had ancient roots such as Mayan, Hindu and other indigenous cultural or religious norms. Others originated with colonial concerns to protect sources of timber for shipbuilding and railway construction, such as in India. In the Tanzanian Usambaras, early forest protection measures by German and British colonial administrations seem to have been motivated primarily by a few environlnentally conscious colonial officials prodded by nature lovers from their home countries.