This paper,  prepared for inception workshop of the "Action Research on Assessing and Enhancing the Impact of Participatory Forest Management on the Livelihoods of the Rural Poor" project, provides a review of some methodologies which have been used to assess the impact of poverty in a number of Participatory Forest Management (PFM) projects. The wider context of this is to provide the background for the development of a methodology that will be used to research the impacts of PFM in four case study countries. This paper should be read in conjunction with the paper by Moss et al., (2005) which provides a literature review of the impact of PFM on poverty reduction.