This regional synthesis paper is part of an overall effort to share the knowledge gained in five years, from 2002 - 2007, of implementing the Small Grant Program for Operations to Promote Tropical Forests (SCPPTF). The findings, lessons, and recommendations presented here emerged from the grantees’ reflections, site visits, project documentation, and discussions and inputs from the eight in-country teams, as well as from the key staff in regional support organizations.

This is a regional overview of the main legal and regulatory questions concerning ownership or access to and management of land-based natural resources. Using the Listening Learning and Sharing (LLS) method, RECOFTC, the Southeast Asia office of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and other RRI partners from the Asia region produced a regional overview of the main legal and regulatory questions concerning ownership or access to and management of land-based natural resources.

"Twenty years ago when RECOFTC was born, community forestry was just emerging onto the global scene as a viable policy option to restore degraded forests and to provide livelihood support for local communities living adjacent to forests. These two objectives remain today, but to them has been added a plethora of other objectives including poverty alleviation, environmental services, equity and governance to name just a few. In short, community forestry, along with other forms of forestry, has become more complex."

Summary

Community forestry has great potential to improve the welfare of the estimated 450 million impoverished people living in and around forests in Asia. But the extent to which this potential is realized depends strongly upon whether communities are able to secure the benefits that community managed forests generate, and whether these actually reach the poorest at the community level. The real benefits obtained in return for the time and energy expended by communities in forest management helps to gain their long-term commitment to sustainable forest management.

This book captures the main lessons and issues emerging from national and regional discussions on 'benefit sharing.' It also presents one case study from each country, selected to highlight issues in different sectors. As we struggle to find ways to strengthen the poverty reduction potential of CBNRM, we hope that this book offers some practical areas to target for future action. 

A collection of practical experiences and lessons on Payments for Environmental Services (PES)

This literature study, conducted under a collaborative framework between NAFRI and RECOFTC, was developed to analyze the status of community contribution to forest resource management in Lao PDR and the modes and extent that communities are or have been involved in the different applied models. The report aims to give an overview of community based forest initiatives up to now, analyze lessons, challenges and opportunities and give guidance for future work.

"Biodiversity provides essential components of healthy environments and sustainable livelihoods. One key component of biodiversity is agrobiodiversity—that is, the cultivated plants and animals that form the raw material of agriculture, the wild foods and other products gathered by rural populations within traditional subsistence systems, and organisms such as pollinators and soil biota... Agrobiodiversity used and conserved in a livelihood context can directly contribute to nutrition, health, and income generation...

"Research, invention, and adoption of agrotechnology have played an important role in improving human nutrition and health. Agrotechnology has introduced more effective plant breeds (such as high-yielding varieties), enhanced land management techniques (such as terracing), and improved water management tools (such as irrigation). The adoption of these techniques has benefited nutrition, largely through boosting crop productivity, thereby providing employment and income to rural populations and increasing local and global food supplies...

"...At the moment, a lack of integration and coordination characterizes the relationship between the agriculture and health sectors. Traditionally, agricultural and health policies address specific goals within those sectors. Agricultural policies address conservation of the natural resource base, protection of farmers’ livelihoods, basic needs of the poor including food security, and the context for regulations on, among other things, food safety and the sound use of pesticides.

"Earlier briefs in this series make the case that there is added value for the agricultural and health sectors in working more closely together to address problems of human well-being that fall at the intersection of the two sectors. Yet the divisions between the two sectors are wide and difficult to bridge. Building the space and providing sufficient incentives and resources for collaborative activities between them will require changes in government policy—itself not a straightforward endeavor.

Agriculture is fundamental to achieving nutrition goals: it produces the food, energy, and nutrients essential for human health and well-being. Gains in food production have played a key role in feeding growing and malnourished populations. Yet they have not translated into a hunger-free world nor prevented the development of further nutritional challenges. Micronutrient deficiencies (for example, of vitamin A, iron, iodine, and zinc) are now recognized as being even more limiting for human growth, development, health, and productivity than energy deficits.