This study argues that there is a considerable lack of clarity regarding the rationale for redistribution of forest management benefits at the community level: in Nepal benefits are redistributed with the aim of mobilising and accumulating natural and social capital to reduce relative poverty and social marginalisation. In Tanzania, however, the focus of benefit sharing is more directly on forest management: benefits are redistributed in order to build local incentives to forest management by balancing forest management costs with its benefits. The study explore these two contrasting objectives, the potential efficiency‐effectiveness‐equity trade‐offs they generate and the degree to which the double goals of forest management and poverty reduction interact within the framework of developing equitable mechanisms for the sharing of forest management benefit.
