The Future of Forest Work and Communities
At the same time that community-based initiatives are being promoted and funded more than ever, globally we are seeing a mass exodus of people from rural areas, including forests, to cities. This urbanization is occurring rapidly: In 1975, 37% of the world’s population lived in cities; today, 53%. Currently, 90% of this urbanization is occurring in developing countries, mainly in the tropics and subtropics (UN-Habitat). Nearly a third is due to rural-urban migration – as globalization forces, or draws, people off their land,people are leaving rural and forested areas to find work in cities. The majority of these people are youth.
In this context of rapid urbanization and globalization, The Future of Forest Work working group seeks to understand: What is the future of forest work, livelihoods, and communities in a rapidly urbanizing world? Will there be forest-dependent livelihoods in the future, and if so, what will they look like? In particular, what are the prospects for today’s young people living in forest-dependent communities? To date our group has developed a robust Youth Visioning Workshop that has been used to empower local youth to take an active role in their forests and communities while collecting comparable insights and data on the drivers of youth migration. Workshops have been held in 15 countries around the world, including Peru, Canada, Nepal, Uganda, Tanzania and Mexico. The workshop methodology is available for use in other countries and contexts, and findings can be shared and compared to other communities via our database.
Other work to date has included a review of the existing literature on forest-urban migration for youth. In 2017 we also held a synthesis meeting that brought together workshop leaders and world experts on youth migration for three days to discuss findings and future directions. Details on existing cases and our methodology have been published in the peer reviewed literature (see below).
For access to the workshop methodology or database, please contact Sarah Wilson at sjwil@umich.edu.
For more information about the group, please visit their website: Future of Forest Work | Youth Forest Collaboration (futureforestwork.com).