Ability of institutions to address new challenges

What types of institutional configurations hold the most promise in fostering efforts for long-term amelioration of enduring environmental, social, and economic challenges facing the world’s forests? This chapter presents, and applies an analytical framework with which to review research findings and analyses that shed light on what appear to be the most promising institutional settings with which to address these drivers, ameliorate problems, and encourage responsible and sustainable forest management around the globe. Our framework focuses attention on the shift from government to governance; political authority; disentangling abstract policy for specific requirements; and capacity enhancing knowledge-generating and administrative institutions. We reveal that the global nature of economic, social, and environmental demands on the world’s forests, and complex commercial trade relationships, require that we integrate analyses of domestic and local responses to assess the role of innovative regional and global institutions designed to address these “good governance” challenges. We conclude by calling for much greater attention to the potential of synergistic institutional intersection to respond to new and enduring challenges