I had a great belly laugh last week while I was reading through case studies of Nepali rural women and their roles in natural resource management for my presentation at an upcoming conference. One case study explaining what happened when women were excluded from the decision making process in a Community Forestry User Group (CFUG) was a particularly entertaining read.

Here’s the story:

Decision makers, mainly men, at that CFUG introduced a rule permitting collection of only dry biomass fuelwood without the consent of women resource users. The women, unaware of the new decree, started collecting both dry and wet biomass according to their customary rights and practices. While collecting the biomass, they were apprehended, held and interrogated.

These women were not able to cook dinner in absence of fuel, as dry and wet biomass serve as the primary source of energy for these resource-poor households.  Later, when their husbands and sons came home and discovered the issue behind the uncooked dinner, they appealed themselves to revise the CFUG rules.

The interesting part of the case study is that women showed the significance of their roles and responsibilities to their male counterparts, or the decision makers, who then took action for change.

More importantly, the lesson learned from the case is the urgency of the need to have gender inclusive rules and practices even in a local-level institution like a CFUG.  

We tend to assume that men and women’s needs, aspirations, opportunities, constraints, roles and responsibilities with regards to the utilization and management of natural resources are alike.  But, in practical sense they differ – and these differences need to be well acknowledged.

Various schools of thought on gender and the environment have argued in favor of a synergistic relationship between women and good husbandry of environmental resources. A growing body of literature recognizes women as the primary managers of natural resources, citing their 90% involvement in collecting water and fuelwood and about 98% role in food processing in developing countries.

Despite this growing recognition of the staggering numbers of women involved in the use and management of natural resources compared with men, women’s contributions are undervalued and often reported as insignificant. The role of women is often painted as merely involving unproductive or non-commercial tasks, as evidenced by the perpetuation of gender-blind programs and policies even at the lowest levels (like CFUGs) where their involvement is vividly visible.

Several research studies have suggested that where community forestry affects the collection of forest products, flawed benefits-sharing can severely impact the livelihoods of resource-poor women and men. In some cases, people from well-off families retain control over most aspects of decision-making, with women and marginalized groups often left out of communication channels and sometimes unaware of the formation of forest users groups in their own communities.

This may be due to the prevailing misconception that women’s roles, although very significant, are concentrated in and around the domestic sphere, dealing with (unpaid) domestic work (i.e. general childcare and household work), whereas men tend to prioritize (paid) productive work (general income-earning, agricultural and commercial activities, etc).

However, over the past few decades, escalating insurgent activities, sectoral violence, shrinking forest cover, depleting water tables, land fragmentation, soil degradation, and frequent droughts and floods in Nepal have worsened the situation and pose serious threats to food security, especially for resource poor families. At the same time, rural men are increasingly seeking off-farm employment opportunities in urban areas. The result has been the feminization of agriculture and natural resource management in Nepal.

Though natural resources provide food, fuel, fodder, timber, medicines, building materials, and services including ecotourism, watersheds, carbon sequestration and soil fertility, the feminization of agriculture has significantly increased the daily workload outside the home for rural Nepali women.

The sad truth is this: throughout the developing world women play a significant role in managing and conserving natural resources, and yet their roles, indigenous knowledge, and skills are undervalued and underrepresented in decision-making, program strategies, and government policies.

I wonder how the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can be achieved if equity and environmental sustainability issues are overlooked when four of the MDGs (MDG 1-the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, MDG 3- promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, MDG 5- improving maternal health, and MDG 7- ensuring environmental sustainability) are directly relevant to achieving equity and sustainability.

One thing is certain: building the capacity of rural women through improved education and training and inclusion in decision-making can help not only to reverse the trend of unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, but also to ensure equity and environmental sustainability in the long run.

Part of the problem is a perceived trade-off between cultivating land for agriculture and preserving it as forestland. RECOFTC discusses this, and other opportunity costs of REDD+ for local people, in the latest REDD-Net Bulletin, in which we point out that current market values for forest carbon offsets simply cannot compete with global prices for crops like rubber, oil palm, and coffee.

However, a new study on deforestation and soy production in the Southern Amazon showed that over the past decade, a drop in deforestation has been matched by growth in agricultural output – seemingly a contradiction in terms. Don’t you need to cut down more trees to make room for more agriculture?

What’s happening is agricultural expansion is occurring in areas that have already been deforested or degraded, rather than clearing new land. In fact, between 2006 and 2010, 91 percent of soy expansion occurred in previously cleared cattle pasture. The report notes that part of the change might be due to a massive campaign by Greenpeace pressuring soy producers to refrain from new forest clearing.

This is great news for forests: we can feed the world’s growing population while retaining crucial forest resources. Yet the change in soybean production in the Amazon is on a huge scale; what can small-scale farmers do?

In Malawi, farmers are increasingly integrating forestry and forest resources into their crop rotations to improve productivity and yields in the face of crippling climate change.

Reuters reports that many farmers there are “intercropping trees with maize to provide moisture-preserving shade for the growing corn, while others bury tree leaves in the ground to make the soil more fertile and help retain moisture at planting time.”  Farmers are using leaves from fast-growing native trees as fertilizers, either by burying them for six months or by planting trees among crops and letting the leaves that fall to the ground fertilize the soil throughout the growing season. The fertilizer provided by the leaves also helps alleviate the burden of purchasing expensive chemical fertilizers, thereby increasing the farmer’s net income.

Innovative ‘agroforestry’ strategies such as this can help make already cleared agricultural land more productive and allay the opportunity costs associated with protecting forest resources. Not only do programs like this one in Malawi support conserving forest resources (so farmers can turn leaves into fertilizer), but they also help bolster food security and improve rural livelihoods.

It should however be recognized that agroforestry approaches such as this tend to be more labor and financially resource intensive for farmers (at least in the establishment phase) and can be technically challenging. These challenges need to be acknowledged at a policy and donor level, with REDD+ funding potentially used to address these challenges (many private REDD+ projects already use agroforestry as their main approach). If this support is forthcoming, we could see this “win-win” scenario becoming a reality in more and more tropical forested countries.

Written by RECOFTC Assistant Communications Officer Lena Buell

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ba Ngai (center left) and Dr. Tint L. Thaung (center right) signing the MOU

How can governments and international organizations work together to reduce poverty and combat deforestation? Collaborative efforts based on mutually beneficial goals sometimes fail to live up to expectations for a variety of reasons. However, the shared history that develops between long standing partners can offer a good basis for more ambitious collaborations.

RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests has worked with the Viet Nam Administration of Forestry since it supported the Center’s founding in 1987. The Vietnamese Government is also a signatory to the charter that made RECOFTC an international organization in 1998. In 2006, the two parties entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to expand their collaboration on community forestry in Vietnam undertaking a range of governance  and climate-related initiatives at the grassroots level. These were backed by policy recommendations  based on solid analytical studies and a capacity building needs assessment for Community Forestry

This week, RECOFTC and the Viet Nam Administration of Forestry renewed their MOU to continue to work together to support the expansion of community forestry in Vietnam over the next three years.

The MOU was signed by Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ba Ngai, Deputy Director General of the Viet Nam Administration of Forestry in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Dr. Tint L. Thaung, Executive Director, RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Thaung pledged: “We at RECOFTC are committed to supporting the Vietnamese Government’s aim of reducing poverty in poor, forest-dependent communities. In this year, when we will celebrate 25 years of commitment and results in demonstrating that community forestry can provide an answer to some of the most pressing challenges we face, RECOFTC would also like to acknowledge the hard work done by the government of Vietnam in addressing these challenges.”

Dr. Ngai emphasized that RECOFTC has laid the foundation for community and social forestry in Vietnam, noting that RECOFTC was the first organization to provide training in community forestry concepts and facilitation skills to many Vietnamese forestry professionals. He expects the MOU will lay the path for further building of capacity in the forestry sector at all levels.

The MOU, valid until 2015, will set the framework for collaboration in policy work, research and analysis, capacity building and information sharing at local and national levels as well as the piloting of new initiatives in community forestry, climate change, livelihood development and other aspects of forest governance.

The full delegation to the signing ceremony in Hanoi, Vietnam

Click here to read more about RECOFTC in Vietnam .

Experience from Nepal shows women value forest resources, but taking part in public meetings on REDD provides a democratic space for engagement that enhances their sense of identity

Haven’t we been talking about gender and the need to mainstream it for decades?  Why then does it seem to re-emerge every time a new ‘development’ or international issue (such as climate change) makes it into the spotlight? More to the point, what about gender in the context of climate change could possibly be new?

While climate change negotiations have breathed new life into efforts to improve women’s conditions around the world, the reality remains: if the push to mainstream gender over the last decade had succeeded, we wouldn’t need to be having these discussions now. If mainstreaming efforts thus far have fallen short of ambitions, what makes us think we will be any more successful under the rubric of climate change and REDD+?

In my work with REDD-Net in the Asia-Pacific region, I’ve come up against these questions time and again. Over time, I’ve come to believe that reflection on the real value added of highlighting gender in REDD+ and the cost effectiveness of devoting REDD+ funds to gender activities is valid and well-founded. These questions do need to be explored and considered critically as we move forward with REDD+ and other climate mitigation activities.

At the COP17 in Durban earlier this month, RECOFTC and Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and NRM (WOCAN) organized an official side event “Gender and REDD+ in the Asia Pacific: Supporting Champions for Women’s Leadership/ Gender Equality” in which we explored these, and other questions regarding  women in the context of forestry and REDD+.

Why does gender matter in REDD+? In a nutshell, men and women use, manage and value forests differently. It is thus critical that this difference is accounted for in REDD+ project design and implementation.

We know, for example, that when it comes to tree species preference, there is not only a difference between the interests, needs, and responsibilities of women and men, but that these priorities can often be in direct conflict. In general, rural women in the region prefer multiple-purpose species, not strictly income-generating timber. They value trees and forest products that contribute to household energy, food and financial security through providing fuelwood, fodder, and food products.  They seek out bushy and branchy trees, looking for varieties that can serve as windbreaks or fencing for livestock or contribute to handicrafts such as broom making.

The importance of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for women is well established. Trees and other flora that contribute fruit, medicinal herbs, nuts, gum, wax, and honey provide  products that women can process, market, and benefit from directly. This is in contrast to preferences by men for high value timber species such as sal, eucalyptus, pine, teak, acacia, and gmelia.

In the context of REDD+, there is a risk that men will favor species known for being fast growing and offering significant carbon sequestration (and financial) benefits over the multipurpose trees relied upon by women.  Unless genuinely participatory decision-making processes are in place as forest carbon markets develop, there is a real risk that the voices and needs of vulnerable stakeholders will be left out. This has real implications for poverty reduction, food security, and biodiversity.

Two main rationales have been floated for the mainstreaming of gender in REDD+. First, there is the ethical imperative grounded in a rights-based approach.  This rationale argues that by virtue of their rights enshrined in the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, women are entitled to be actively and equitably involved in REDD+. Second, there is the pragmatic argument of effectiveness. Here, the argument rests on the premise that directly involving women increases the efficacy of reducing forest-based emissions and, given their differentiated financial and social capital management strategies, overall transaction costs for REDD+ are likely to be minimized.

However, I argue there is a third compelling reason for involving women in REDD+.

While conducting focus group discussions with female members of community forestry groups in Nepal, an unexpected finding surfaced. Why, I asked, would women members be prepared to walk, literally for days through the Himalayas, children in tow, in order to attend community forestry user group assemblies? Of course, they greatly valued the trees and the ecosystem services the forests provided to them and their communities. But even more prized by them was the opportunity, in many cases the sole opportunity, to have a public identity. To participate in democratic processes. To be justified in leaving the house. To have a voice.

Community forestry in Nepal, while perhaps imperfect, has contributed to the increased involvement and voice of women in what has been at times one of the few democratic institutions available in rural areas. Mandating women’s representation at the highest levels of user group committees has normalized the role of women in decision-making processes, created networks of support, generated independent income for women, and, I would argue in short, has made strides in re-writing the role of women in this society.

It is ambitious, but I believe that REDD+ can contribute to similar structural change.  As a performance-based system framed by safeguards requirements that will continue to develop over time, strengthening gender requirements and safeguards at national levels can and must be done. Mandating women’s involvement in REDD+ can have teeth in a way that gender mainstreaming in conventional development projects does not.

What is, or what could be new about gender in REDD+? In essence, if designed and implemented well, failing to include women could mean failing to qualify for REDD+ payments. Taking this kind of strict stance can set up a strong incentive for communities to recognize and empower women as equal actors in natural resource management, an important step toward improving quality of life for millions of rural women.

Read the REDD-Net bulletin on gender and REDD+ for more information

The United Nations International Year of Forests, with the theme ‘Celebrating Forests for People,’ just drew to a close. Many applauded the UN for choosing a theme that signaled attention to people, the stewards of forests, who have long been neglected.

In fact, ‘forests for people’ is not a new discourse at all. In 1978, the World Forestry Congress had the same theme. So now, 33 years later, we must ask ourselves again: how much progress has been achieved for forest-dependent people? Are they now playing a more active role in forest management? Are they benefiting more from forests and forestry?

In the 1980s and 1990s there was a growing interest in the role of forests in poverty reduction. During that period, the timber industry (logging concessions, pulp and paper, furniture sector) multiplied rapidly. Asia’s rich forests were a major source of national revenues in many countries. There was a lot of hope that local people could benefit from this development. Unfortunately, what was hoped for was not always the reality.

Nancy Peluso, Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy at UC Berkeley, in her seminal 1990s book Rich Forest Poor People, observed how poor people living in and around teak plantations in Java, Indonesia, did not benefit from the plantation and industries that processed the teak. They remained the poorest members of society despite the fact that they lived around one of the most valuable timber species in the world. This gap was largely attributed to mismanagement by the State Forest Enterprises and exclusion of local people.

Today, we are in a relatively different situation. Much of Asia’s natural forests have been logged and converted to other land uses such as oil palm and rubber plantations, agriculture, residential areas and so forth. In addition, illegal logging is rampant and has been a major cause of deforestation. Asia lost 3.7 million hectares of its pristine natural forests each year over the course of the last two decades.

We do not have our rich forests anymore – they are gone! We have poor forests and huge areas of secondary forests, bare and degraded land. Where we still have good quality primary forests they are often located in protected areas or in steep slopes inaccessible for logging. This is a sad reality that we have to swallow.

In the region, there are still more than 400 million people living under the poverty line, many of whom live in and around the forests. They often depend on forests for their livelihoods and survival. Their income is less than $2 per day. At the same time, they have fewer resources available in the forests due to rapid forest conversion.

Perhaps, it is not an exaggeration if we describe our current situation as Poor Forests Poor People, something that Nancy Peluso and many of us could not have anticipated 30 years ago. Sadly, this is the reality – sober and frustrating – that we face today. Naming and blaming will not help, as somewhere along the line we all have a share of blame. So, let’s stop pointing fingers and ask ourselves honestly, is it really too late?

I believe there is hope for Asian forests. There is time to act – but it has to be now. It is better late than never to pursue the progress being made on a number of fronts. A recent report by RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests and European Forest Institute indicates that as much as 27% of Asia’s forests are now owned and managed by local people, compared to only a small percentage 30 years ago. This improvement is largely thanks to the decentralization and devolution process in many countries and the development of community forestry schemes. This trend is expected to continue.

There is still hope for Asian forests - including this one in Vietnam. Photo by Yurdi Yasmi

In the last two decades, communities and local people have played a key role in the rehabilitation of degraded land in China, Philippines and Vietnam. Forest cover has come back in those countries due to large scale reforestation schemes. The list of examples of good community forest management continues to grow, shoring up the argument that communities are good stewards of forests.

‘Forests for People’ will become a reality in the near future only if we provide concrete opportunities for local people in commercial forestry and enterprise development so that they can generate more income.  This is vital and a crucial base on which future progress must be built.

Forest people need an enabling environment and policy support from governments and donors alike to help access markets for their products, including timber. Responsible partnerships with the private sector should be accelerated. Businesses have as much to gain or lose from environmental degradation and climate change as recent events have tragically shown across Southeast Asia. In Thailand alone, the loss from floods is estimated at 1.4 trillion baht by the World Bank. The time has come for private sector involvement in conservation and inclusion initiatives rather than exploitation and eviction of local people from their forests. The key is to ensure that whatever schemes we introduce, communities will be regarded as partners who stand to benefit from them.

This means that the future of Asian forests will very much rely on how communities and local people are engaged in sustainable forest management. Community forestry, boosted by an enabling policy environment, is key for solving current and emerging challenges both at a national level and for local communities and indigenous people. Forests for People can be a reality, not just a slogan.

Reporting by Xiang Ding

A monk serving breakfast

Sam Phak Nam, Thailand, June, 2011: “We want to foster a harmonious relationship between forest, temple, and community,” says the head priest of  Sam Phak Nam’s temple, sitting cross-legged in a traditional golden-yellow robe. I had come for a ritual breakfast prepared by the village women and served by their children to a group of 10 monks. Outside, the rising sun outlines the limestone mountains towering above plantation fields and trees. It’s hard not to feel at peace.

In its 15-year-history, the temple has been a common meeting ground for villagers from Phu Pa Man National Park in Thailand’s Northeastern Khon Kaen province. Sam Phak Nam was originally settled in the 1950s, but residents were alternately expelled and welcomed back through a series of resettlement initiatives over the following decades. Villagers were repatriated in 1992 under a national land redistribution initiative called Khor Jor Kor (a Thai acronym meaning ‘Land Distribution Program for the Poor Living in Degraded National Forest Reserves in the Northeast of Thailand’), but discovered that their land had now been designated a National Park.

When the 71 households of Sam Phak Nam returned to find their homes were now in a conservation area, the situation initially revealed an uncertain future for the community. Given the lack of land tenure rights at the time and pressure for a more integrated agriculture system on the villagers’ part, it was clear a compromise and a sustainable way forward had to be identified. RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests, was one of the organizations invited in 1992 to help develop a comprehensive land use plan to meet the needs of both parties.

Together with a coalition of partners, RECOFTC initiated a series of sustainable livelihood training programs including participatory natural resource management and community budgeting. Over a period of three years, it supported forest officials and community members to set up a local forest management plan, facilitating workshops and training programs that allowed participants to exchange lessons and experiences with other community forestry networks.

A positive outcome of these exchanges was recognition by the government of the communities’ needs and rights. Sam Phak Nam was able to create a collaborative and community-oriented land management project at Phu Pa Man National Park, including the establishment of the Community Forestry Committee (CFC). “Ever since Sam Phak Nam retrieved its rights from the government, it has been a model of community forestry,” said the priest. The fact that some of the monks are specifically trained in reforestation practices has also strengthened the temple’s role in sustainable forest management.

A shared history with the National Park

As he finishes reminiscing, the priest unlocks the gate connecting village-owned land and the designated national park forest. The temple, set up on grounds that served as a buffer zone between national forest and community land in 1992, retains the original key to the reserve, perhaps in recognition of it’s role as guardian of the forests, while the village has the only duplicate.

The Phu Pa Man National Park entrance

Por Uthit, an amiable forester, recalls that when tension was highest during negotiations between Thailand’s Royal Forestry Department and independent village communities, buffer zones sprang up all across the region to mitigate potential conflict. During my visit to the temple’s backyard, another buffer zone, the area revealed little signs of human interference other than various Buddhist structures sprinkled amidst thick woody areas.  Using religion as a common ground, it seemed as if buffer lines were drawn across as much sacred and spiritual territory as possible to ensure neutral zones remained peaceful between villagers and Park officials.

While memories of the disruption of Khor Jor Korproject remain, Por Gaw Wong Krai, the chair of the village’s Community Forestry Committee (CFC), reminds me that in Phu Pa Man National Park, villagers were properly and legally resettled after comprehensive protection and utilization agreements were drawn. The temple, buffer zones, and the village’s committee on community forestry all trace their birth to 1992 and the years immediately after.

Today, Sam Phak Nam’s relationship with the National Park revolves around a patchwork of formal land designations and informal arrangements. Formally, the village sits on land marked out for agricultural use, with a small adjacent area known as ‘utilized community forest,’ from which villagers are allowed to draw resources. There is also a large area classified as ‘conserved community forest,’ a protected region marked out strictly for reforestation. Further out lies the national-park-owned section, where no use of natural resources is allowed. Both the National Park and the ‘conserved community forest’ grounds are part of the Thai government’s efforts, beginning in the 1990s, to curtail deforestation and conserve biodiversity in designated national parks.

A local villager sells banana leaves, an abundant natural resource in the area

Given differing priorities on conservation versus resource access, it might seem that relations between the villagers and park officials would be strained. In reality, though, they operate cordially on an informal agreement that shifts the practical burden of looking after the ‘conserved community forest’ region to villagers, allowing them to implement local knowledge and traditional approaches to forest maintenance. RECOFTC’s Thailand Country Coordinator Somying Soontornwong notes, “With Sam Phak Nam, conflict resolution was not the only successful outcome.  The livelihoods of the community are better as well. There’s an agreement between the community and the national park that allows villagers to harvest bamboo during certain seasons of the year, which they use as a source of income and sustenance.”

As a result, the CFC plays the lead role in protecting the conserved community forest. “It is the sole body standing against the illegal private harvesting of non-timber forest products,” such as bamboo, which is fertile in the area, says CFC chair Por Gaw. A down-to-earth, strong-willed man under whose direction the community has focused on organic agriculture and natural community forest rehabilitation, he has ensured the agreement with national park officials has led to better conservation results and improved relations between the Park and villagers.

Community forest management to reduce conflict

Por Gaw has been implementing the lessons learned from RECOFTC trainings to reduce conflict within his community. After establishing the committee in 1992, he began campaigning for trespassing restrictions in National Park areas, recognizing the importance of respecting the formal boundaries set during negotiations.  The CFC focused next on choosing specific areas to mitigate forest fires.  By selectively using forest cuttings, such as dead branches or pruning thick trees, they were conserving valuable plants and trees while improving the landscape’s resilience to wild fires.

This kind of small-scale, selective forest management has helped foster a more robust and healthy ecosystem around the village. Por Gaw says, “Our efforts allowed forest animals—fish, mountain frogs, and deer—to thrive. We made the environment better, the air cleaner, and reduced carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.”

However, thanks to an engaged and passionate group of community leaders, like Por Gaw and the temple priest, working in collaboration with Park officials, forest resources in Phu Pa Man National Park have a good chance against encroachment and overexploitation.

For more information on RECOFTC’s work on people-park conflict and how it has been successfully managed please refer to this case study.

The views reflected in this story are largely from the community perspective as presented by the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests.

November, Bokeo, Laos: Last month, members of RECOFTC’s team and representatives from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland traveled to Bokeo, Lao PDR to follow up on site development for the ForInfo project. The three-year project, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, aims to empower forest-dependent communities and small holders in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam through holistic development of information networks at the community level.

The project takes the well-known premise that knowledge is power and turns it into a tool for poverty reduction. Helping local people learn how to generate quality information about their forest resources makes them better equipped to access markets for their products and services. Ultimately, improving rural people’s ability to generate and use information about forest resources can contribute not just to poverty reduction but also to the sustainability of forests, and global efforts to mitigate climate change by helping communities adapt.

The team met with representatives of bamboo harvesting communities to discuss ways to access the bamboo value chain

Improving livelihoods in community forestry faces myriad challenges. Building communities’ understanding of and involvement in forest management and forest product value chains offers an innovative path forward.

In Bokeo, Laos, the ForInfo project sites represent a diversity of forest-based industries. In each case, forest-dependent communities stand to improve their livelihoods through the development of information networks and, ultimately, meaningful market engagement.

The ForInfo project helps local people develop viable livelihood opportunities, such as this smallholder tea plantation in Bokeo, Laos

At one site, ForInfo is supporting the development of an innovative new micro-credit scheme that hinges on the use of standing trees as loan collateral. This concept stands in contrast to the more common practice of using communities’ own land use rights to secure loans.

As the situation exists now, farmers in financial emergencies may decide to sell some of their trees for fast cash. They are likely to sell their largest trees, even if they are premature—only 12-15 years old—as standing trees to middlemen who skim most of the profit. In this case, the share in value addition for the farmer is rather low—typically below 15%. The problem of losing value from mismanaged harvesting is a national concern for Lao PDR.

Once in place, the microcredit scheme will enable communities to apply for loans to bolster their micro- and small-enterprises at an interest rate of 12-15%, meanwhile letting the trees mature to 25-30 years—a period during which the annual value increment of teak is on the order of 20-25%.

RECOFTC’s Bernhard Mohns and Wacharee Kanyamasa, along with Ms. Helena Ahola, Counsellor and Head of Development Co-operation, Embassy of Finland in Bangkok and
Ms. Sanna Pulkkinen, Program Officer for Vietnam and Mekong Unit for Asia and Oceania, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, met with a micro-finance firm and The Forest Trust (TFT) teak consultants on their visit to the site. The team successfully identified three villages in teak-forests that are appropriate for piloting this new collateral scheme.

Ms. Helena Ahola (left) and Ms. Sanna Pulkkinen (center) look on during a site visit with a Lao partner.

Bernhard participated in an on-site training for Lao PDR government representatives in assessing plantation management practices. This training represents a concrete step towards making teak-collateral loans a reality for smallholder teak-forest communities. The government representatives who attended the training will be the link between small-share teak-farmers and banks: they will issue and administer the teak-collateral certificates.

Providing an alternative option for farmers to access capital, and removing incentives to harvest young trees, may be one part of the solution towards Lao PDR communities reclaiming their share of the value chain.

Click here for more information on the ForInfo project.

One can easily get the impression that forest policy is predominantly made at global summits and in transnational initiatives these days. Consider, for example, the attention given to the recent Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in Durban.

Yet in practice, national governments remain the primary actors in forest policy-making in most countries. National law defines the statutory tenure rights granted to local communities. National regulatory frameworks condition local communities’ ability to utilize forest tenure rights in practice.

For this reason, national policy analysis and national-level engagement with stakeholders remain of critical importance for community forestry and sustainable forest management. Thus, a new publication edited by Thomas Sikor from the University of East Anglia and Nguyen Quang Tan from RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests entitled Realizing Forest Rights in Vietnam: Addressing Issues in Community Forest Management provides valuable insights into forest policy in Vietnam.

Vietnam’s government has created strong foundations for the development of community forest management through tenure reform, or Forest Land Allocation, as it is commonly referred to in Vietnam. Back in 1993, the government enacted groundbreaking legislation that mandated the transfer of forest tenure from State Forest Enterprises to local people. Since then, Forest Land Allocation has transferred tenure rights to 26% of the total forest area to local communities (including individual households, household groups and whole villages). This is an impressive achievement that attests to the significance of national capacity for the design and implementation of forest policy.

Nevertheless, there are obvious ways to deepen forest tenure reforms in Vietnam. First, the country requires reinvigorated efforts to expand Forest Land Allocation to communities, increasing the share of forests under community management. This expansion needs to develop and apply new procedures that are more responsive to local communities’ needs and aspirations.

Second, giving rights to forest to local communities is not enough to improve local livelihoods and conserve existing forest resources. Further policy reforms need to strengthen communities’ forest tenure rights, and facilitate communities to generate tangible benefits from forests. Vietnam’s government has yet to create the required enabling regulatory frameworks for community-based forest management planning, benefit-sharing, PFES and REDD+ contracts, shared forest governance, and the operation of Civil Society Organizations.

These strategic interventions, if implemented, would enable community forest management to make crucial contributions to sustainable forest management and socio-economic development in Vietnam. The burden is upon Vietnam’s government and national policy-making processes to put them into practice.

Realizing Forest Rights in Vietnam: Addressing Issues in Community Forest Management is based on a collection of policy briefs produced under a project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) designed to  highlight key issues related to forest management and advocate for national policy on forest rights and community forest management. The individual policy briefs, in English and Vietnamese, can also be found on the RECOFTC website.

Managing and maintaining a vibrant forest ecosystem requires the strengths and insights of a diverse group of people. The Regional Model Forests Network-Asia (RMFN-Asia) is a branch of an international network seeking to bring more voices into forest management—and recently collaborated with RECOFTC to sharpen the network’s strategic vision and deepen its ability to support Model Forests around the region.

The RMFN-Asia is part of the International Model Forests Network (IMFN), established by the government of Canada in the 1990s after a spate of forest-related conflicts there involving environmentalists, governments, indigenous peoples, communities and forest workers. The government piloted what it called ‘Model Forests’ throughout the country, forming partnerships between different user groups to work together to create an approach, or model, of sustainable forest management that made sense within the specific features and circumstances of a given landscape.

While the “model” responds to local needs and values, all model forests share a set of six defining principles that all Model Forests share, whether in Indonesia, Canada, or Cameroon. These principles give the network coherence and provide the foundation for networking among members all around the world.

Peter Besseau is the Executive Director of the International Secretariat, and has been working with the International Model Forests Network (IMFN) since 1994. Peter sat down with me to discuss his work during a break in the RMFN-Asia’s early October board meeting, hosted by RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests. Clearly excited by his work, he spoke with enthusiasm about the history of the network and where he sees it going next. “We speak very strongly to the social science aspect of sustainability, which historically has been a gap,” Peter says. “The tough thing is how people understand the demands they place on ecosystems and the tradeoffs in the choices they make. That’s something we do in a very direct way, so we fill an important niche.”

Crafting a roadmap for the future

The Regional Model Forests Network – Asia was founded in 1998 with funding from the government of Japan through FAO, and with technical support from the IMFN Secretariat. In 2005, the Network called on RECOFTC to help develop a strategic plan to guide the organization over the next several years. RECOFTC and RMFN-Asia had worked together before, with RECOFTC supporting  the Ngao Model Forest in collaboration with the Royal Forest Department of Thailand and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment since 1998. The resulting Plan featured six focal areas that would form a roadmap for the Network moving forward:

•    Exploring ecological goods and services provided by forests;
•    Promoting poverty alleviation and food security;
•    Enhancing forest cover and biodiversity conservation;
•    Ensuring water security;
•    Improving governance and law enforcement for sustainable forest management; and
•    Assessing climate change vulnerability and facilitating community adaptation

Unfortunately, the network has lacked sufficient resources so far to implement its new objectives. Interested to explore ways to broaden available resources, the Network planned a board meeting for October, 2011 to discuss potential collaborative fundraising opportunities. On the top of the list was the idea of Payments for Environmental Services (PES), so the IMFN approached RECOFTC for training and facilitation.

Supporting the Network through training and facilitation

Peter turned to RECOFTC because “it has great people skills, convening power, facilitation skills, knowledge of the region, and knowledge of forest issues,” he says. “RECOFTC has their finger on the pulse of a lot of issues that are important to Model Forests.”

RECOFTC Senior Program Officer, Toon De Bruyn, led participants from China, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Costa Rica, and Canada in a PES workshop exploring its income potential for Model Forests throughout the region in the years ahead. The idea was that the Model Forests could use the resources at their disposal – the environmental services provided by their forestland – to generate income to support the sustainability of their organization in the long term. Since financial support for Model Forest sites is primarily the responsibility of stakeholders, developing sustainable income chains through PES might help ensure that poorer model forests maintain the same momentum and vibrancy as those with more significant donor investment.

The next day, the PES training participants shared their newfound knowledge at the RMFN-Asia board meeting. Peter observed participants discussing ideas for stronger collaboration on a number of different ideas, including forest restoration and PES.  While there are obvious differences between the forests—the Asia Regional Network is made up of eight forests in six different countries—the network members strongly supported more regional collaboration and the need for regular exchange and communication.

The main outcome of the workshop was an outline for a project proposal to strengthen regional cooperation on forest restoration, to be submitted to APFNet. In addition, RECOFTC and the RMFN-Asia are discussing possible avenues for collaboration between our two organizations during implementation of the proposed project, as well as further strengthening of the network as a whole.

Peter sees great potential for future collaboration and cooperation between RECOFTC and the International Model Forests Network. There is a certain synergy that exists between the work of our two organizations, each striving to support the human side of forest management, that sets a strong foundation to work together again.

For more information about RECOFTC’s work in community forestry, forest livelihoods (including PES), and facilitation services, visit our website.

A short video on the Pai Forest of Pakistan. Read more on Dawn.com. The article (linked) notes,

“Other than its importance as an ecological unit Pai Forest is a life support system for 21 villages situated on its periphery. Most of the people living around the Forest are poor and marginalized. Their main sources of livelihood are agriculture, forestry and fisheries and thus they are dependent upon the natural products of the forest to meet their daily requirement of food, fuel wood and earnings.”

To learn more about forest-dependent people and RECOFTC’s work to support them, visit the RECOFTC website.