"The group aims to assist communities and governments to double the global forest area under community ownership and management by 2015," it said.

UN goals for halving poverty by 2015 could not be achieved unless governments helped the 1.6 billion people who depended on forests for their livelihoods, it said.

"That includes some 350 million indigenous and tribal people who depend on forests for food, housing, heat, and medicine," it said.

Their rights were often eroded by logging or by forest clearances by rich land owners or governments, it said.

It said that local communities, including indigenous residents, now managed at least 370 million hectares of forest -- an area larger than India. In total, forests cover about 30 percent of the earth's land area.

Andy White, coordinating the initiative from the United States, said that the situation for forestry ownership was feudal because governments had tight control. Local people could often do a better job. FEUDAL

"Governments control the land and people who depend on forests often have few rights," he told Reuters. "The situation is like Europe in the 14th century or quite like the situation in the United States 100 years ago."

Ninety percent of forests in Africa were government owned, he said. He said that local communities were often more efficient at managing forests than government or logging companies.

"Local communities are not saints but they can probably do a better job in managing the forests," he said. Needed reforms of laws, mapping and so on would probably cost at least a billion dollars and take years to achieve.

The RRI said its founding partners included the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research and Washington-based Forest Trends. It has funding from countries including the United States, Britain, Canada and Sweden.

"Significant legal and other barriers persist," said Achim Steiner, Director-General of the IUCN.