REUTERS: Cut emissions and poverty, not trees, by letting locals manage forests

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LONDON, May 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Giving local communities the responsibility to manage forests - which are shrinking worldwide - could help ease poverty and deforestation, scientists said on Monday in what they described as one of the largest studies of its kind.

Researchers examined more than 18,000 community-led forest initiatives in Nepal, using satellite images and census data from the South Asian country, where more than a third of forests are managed by a quarter of the population.