ABSTRACT
Forests enhance socio-ecological resilience through a variety of mechanisms: supporting and regulating the natural environment (e.g., watershed management and carbon sequestration), providing an abundance of wild goods from fuel to medicine and providing cultural spaces and resources for communities (e.g., for important ceremonies). In this chapter, we will limit our discussion to a subset of these ecosystem services which has traditionally received the most coverage in academic literature, public policy and private industry-nature’s provisioning services (Bennett, Peterson, and Gordon, 2009; Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007; Kalame, 2011; United Nations 2005). Fuels, foods and fodder produced within forest ecosystems as well as other resources located within them, like fresh water and arable land, are highly valuable from environmental, economic and social perspectives. Many components of resilience are therefore well represented within the forest, in particular the natural resources that can be harvested and used to diversify livelihoods, improve household nutrition and support ecological balance.
