New participatory forest management policies are being promoted in South Africa involving devolution from the state to local communities at a time when traditional authority has been eroded and is weak. Here, attitudes of forest stakeholders (forest resource users and managers) to three possible forest management policies, as well as to resource use, were investigated using questionnaires. There was concordance in the attitudes of resource users and managers and a general lack of support for community forest management (CFM), particularly among older resource users. Power shifts, uncertainty about land tenure and the management of what has essentially become an open-access system, all confound attempts to implement community-based forestry programmes. Local communities appeared to be wary of taking on responsibility for forest management at this time and indicated comparatively stronger support for state forest management (SFM). Forest stakeholders were more equivocal in their support for participatory forest management (PFM), although this probably reflects a poor understanding by forest users of the new PFM process. No stakeholders supported a total ban on forest resource use, but all supported controlled use. These latter attitudes were independent of the preferred management system (i.e. CFM, SFM or PFM). This study corroborates the view that CFM has been overemphasized. Rather than narrowing forest management around communities, but recognizing the state's incapacity to ensure the integrity of forest resources into the future without the co-operation of forest users, an all-inclusive approach, such as PFM, provides for greater management input by the state.