| Market-centered valuations based on "willingness to pay" for forest goods reduce natural systems into commodity bundles, and omit critical information about human institutions in relation to forests. Likewise, nature-centered evaluations focused on biotic attributes forfeit the important role of human institutions in mediating human-ecosystem interactions. In order to facilitate sustainable forestry discourse, the focus of evaluations must be expanded to include richly described, substantive and institutional, states of affairs relevant for decision-making. Thus, non-market, societal evaluations suited for this purpose are undertaken using a case of Mount Kilimanjaro. First, a non-market technique for welfare functions of forest amenities is developed and used to evaluate welfare functions of wood fuels. Second, the social choice approach is used to investigate societal states of forests that enhance human and environmental well-being. Then, forest stakeholder attitudes, and institutional dynamics, in relation to forests, are investigated using possibility theory and the chaos theory. Villagers, foresters, park employees, entrepreneurs and environmentalists were surveyed.;Regarding welfare functions, the study's major findings are: (a) the "preference drift" phenomenon, indicating people's amenity aspirations shift with the amenity level attained; (b) communal energy conservation phenomenon indicating decreasing percapita fuel consumption with household size; and (c) the critical role of "environmental entitlements" in regulating fuel consumptions. These outcomes contest models that assume static percapita wood fuel consumptions. Concerning social value preferences, non-use forest values and indirect use values were the most preferred. Further, both "individual conscience" and "social conscience" evaluations were evident; hence, the Homo economicus view of forest stakeholders is refuted. These outcomes challenge commodity-centered forestry, and validate an ecosystem-based forestry agenda.;Three alternative forest regimes are investigated for their social acceptability: centralized state control, collaborative-management engaging diverse stakeholders, and community-based-management. The most socially acceptable is the collaborative approach. Policy implications are highlighted. Finally, a chaos theory model of interactions of different stakeholders in the forest regime reveals roles of educational and occupational institutions in modulating stakeholders' behaviors. The presence of informal 'pro-environment' and 'pro-development ' 'advocacy coalitions', each with representatives from environmental, park, forest and agrarian occupations is highlighted, challenging conventional policy analyses that rely only on formal sectors. |
