The benefits and constraints of participation in forest management. The case of Taita Hills, Kenya NINA HIMBERG, LOICE OMORO, PETRI PELLIKKA AND OLAVI LUUKKANEN Himberg, Nina, Loice Omoro, Petri Pellikka & Olavi Luukkanen (2009). The benefits and constraints of participation in forest management. The case of Taita Hills, Kenya. Fennia 187: 1, pp. 61–76. Helsinki. ISSN 0015-0010. Although they accommodate a wide variety of endemic flora and fauna, the in- digenous mountain rain forests of East Africa are being depleted. Some patches remain in Taita Hills of Kenya and benefit from their management as forest re- serves, with limited access to local communities, by the Kenyan government. Recently, through the Forest Act 2005, the government began to grant user rights to forest adjacent dwellers through participatory forest management initiatives. We conducted this study in February 2007 among groups engaged in forest-re- lated activities and living near the Ngangao, Mbololo, Mwambirwa and Chawia forest reserves in order to offer insights into local people’s perceptions about benefits and constraints of participation in forest management during the trans- formation of the forest policy. Our respondents considered efforts to conserve forests for ecological services, namely water catchment and biodiversity mainte- nance important. Sustainable future use of forest products, especially firewood and medicinal plants were emphasized. However, shortcomings, such as inad- equate access to updated information about management practices and legal rights, hampered participation. The respondents viewed this as working without proper tools, which, they stated, may gradually lead to unsuccessful conserva- tion efforts, and felt that the government still prohibits full community participa- tion. Nina Himberg & Petri Pellikka, Department of Geography, PO Box 64, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. E-mails: nina.himberg@helsinki.fi, petri.pellik- ka@helsinki.fi. Loice Omoro & Olavi Luukkanen, Viikki Tropical Resources Institute, PO Box 27, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. E-mails: loice.omoro@helsinki.fi, olavi.luukkanen@helsinki.fi. Introduction The Rio Earth Summit (UNCED 1992) and the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD 2002) have elaborated on the need for en- vironmental conservation, sustainable develop- ment and the integration of local participation. Subsequently, many countries have implemented strategies to address these concerns. Some of these strategies include the enactment of new legisla- tion, the provision of incentives and the restructur- ing of the forestry sector (GoK 1994; GRN 1996; GRN 2001; RoK 2005). New concepts in forest management hitherto unknown in conventional forestry, such as participatory forestry, community forestry (Selener 1997; Saxena et al. 2001) and joint forest management (Misra 1997), have devel- oped and been incorporated into forest policies and legislation. In the early 1990s, development agencies intro- duced participatory forest management in sub-Sa- haran Africa (Matose & Wily 1996; Salomao & Matose 2007) with the key objective that the gov- ernments that own and administer most of the for- est resources (White & Martin 2002) would de- volve powers to local communities. In the process, governments would improve forest management practices (Andersson et al. 2006) or institute own- ership and rights over natural resources (Potters et al. 2001). In participatory forestry, such decentrali-