Marcus Colchester

“Forests” originated as medieval royal hunting reserves that imposed restrictive forestry laws on customary forest users, generating resentment and rebellion. As property laws were strengthened, poor peoples’ rights were increasingly restricted. This European model of forestry was exported through colonialism and post-colonial forestry development to the tropics and has severely limited the rights of forest peoples – Indigenous peoples and others with customary rights in forests. Reforms have been demanded—in line with international human rights laws—but are resisted by those who benefit from the status quo.  

Speaker Biography

Marcus Colchester - Senior Policy Advisor, Forest Peoples Programme

Marcus Colchester has a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Oxford and has spent 45 years working with forest peoples all around the tropics and in the taiga. He was Founder-Director and now Senior Policy Advisor of the international human rights organization, the Forest Peoples Programme. Since 1980, he has researched and advocated on the impacts of imposed development and conservation on Indigenous peoples. He has published widely on these subjects including Salvaging Nature: Indigenous peoples, protected areas and biodiversity conservation (1994, 2nd edition 2003) and various volumes on the political ecology of forest peoples in Sarawak, Guyana, Suriname, and Indonesia, as well as in academic and popular journals. In recognition of his work, he has been awarded a Pew Conservation Fellowship, the RAI’s Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology and an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University. He is a member of the IUCN’s Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, and he is social NGO representation on the Board of Governors of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and the Board of Directors of the Forest Stewardship Council. He is a long-term Steering Group member of the Yale University-based The Forests Dialogue (TFD). 

Recommended Readings

Westoby, J. (1989). Introduction to World Forestry Basil Blackwell.