As the first of the Rural Development Forestry Network series, this paper reviewed the current status of social forestry worldwide. Emphasis was placed on identifying key lines of research, along which contributions from networkers were encouraged, and on suggesting potential solutions to prevailing problems faced by social forestry projects. Most of these are still with us: at the village level issues of land tenure, effective common property regimes, organisation of user groups and social stratification by gender or wealth, and at the level of forestry agencies issues of institutional arrangements, extension methods, appropriate technology and creation of fair workable social contracts with local user groups.