"With a particular focus on forest management and governance, this book examines how the Adaptive Collaborative Management approach can be utilised to address global environmental issues by complementing global and national policies with community-based action and commitment. There is broad recognition of the need to involve local communities and to enhance the resilience of local systems, both social and biophysical. However, more support for smallholders, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities who depend on forests for their livelihoods, and have a key role in their stewardship, is needed. This volume argues that the activation and the empowerment of local peoples is critical to addressing current environmental challenges. This can be achieved by employing the participatory approach of Adaptive Collaborative Management, which is characterized by conscious efforts among stakeholders to communicate, collaborate, negotiate, and seek out opportunities to learn collectively about the impacts of their actions. The authors' conviction for this approach is based on decades of experience working with local communities, with this volume drawing on case studies from three Indonesian Islands and four African countries, all areas where development pressure is acute. They provide concrete examples showing how a bottom-up approach can function to enhance policies and development. Researchers and practitioners who participated in CIFOR's early Adaptive Collaborative Management work, had the rare opportunity to return to their research sites decades later to see what has happened. These authors reflect critically on their own experience and the conditions at the sites to glean insights that will help us effectively address climate change and other forest-related challenges. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in the fields of conservation, forest management, community development, natural resource management and development studies more broadly"--