JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY NAME: MUTHONI MAUREEN REG. NUMBER: HD122-4025/2014 COURSE: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT UNIT NAME: RURAL AND URBAN SOCIOLOGY UNIT CODE: HSD 0104 LECTURER: JOAN KARANJA TASK: DISCUSSING A RESOURCE, ELABORATING ON ITS FUNCTIONS AND HOW THE COMMUNITY MANAGES IT.

1. DISCUSSION OF A RESOURCE WITHIN MY COMMUNITY FOREST
A forest is any ecological community that is structurally dominated by tree-sized woody plants. Forests occur anywhere that the climate is suitable in terms of length of growing season, air and soil temperature and sufficiency of soil moisture. Forest can be classified into two broad types on the basis of their geographic range and dominant type’s o f trees. The most extensive of these types are; boreal coniferous, temperate angiosperm, and tropical forest.
Forests are extremely important natural resource that can potentially be sustainably harvested and managed to yield a diversity of commodities of economic importance .wood is by far the most important product harvested from forests. The wood is commonly manufactured into paper, lumber, plywood and other products .in addition, in most of the forested regions of the less developed world firewood is the most important source of energy used for cooking and other purposes.Pontentially, all of these forest products can be sustainably harvested. It is critical that in the future all forest harvesting is conducted in a manner that is more responsible in terms of sustaining the resource.

FUNCTIONS OF FORESTS IN COOMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Forests are important to community ecological economic and social well being. They provide wood and non-wood products, recreational opportunities and other non market goods and services such as