East–Southeast Asia is currently one of the fastest urbanizing regions in the world, with countries such as China climbing from 20 to 50% urbanized in just a few decades. By 2050, these countries are projected to add 1 billion people, with 90% of that growth occurring in cities. This population…

The deforestation-free movement (or “zero-deforestation”) has emerged recently in a context of lower state control, globalization and pressure on corporations by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) through consumer awareness campaigns, acknowledging the essential role of agricultural…

Hand tools are the most commonly used for subsistence or household use when harvesting bamboo or fuelwood. Axes, two-man handsaws and other hand tools are presented and discussed in this factsheet.

Steep-slope harvesting probably poses the biggest challenges in forest harvesting throughout the world. Traditionally, on slopes above 30 percent, gravitational transport is applied in manual harvesting operations by simply sliding logs downhill.

The Jonsereds Iron Horse (Swedish Järn Hästen) was the irst commercially available rubber-tracked mini-skidder (crawler) to appear in Scandinavian forest operations in the early 1980s. It was developed from smaller all-terrain crawlers, originally designed for use in hunting to transport moose…

This brief gives an overview of how using standing teak as a collateral asset for obtaining loans from banks and credit institutions can create opportunities for smallholder farmers as well discussions on the implementation of reforms covering provincial forest tenure and forest asset mortgaging…

Two-wheeled manual sulkies were developed in the 1970s for use in the tropics by forest development projects of mainly Scandinavian countries. In its final development stage, a sulky with double bogie wheels was designed in 1985 in Finland and applied widely in east African countries and the…

In 2014-15, RECOFTC demonstrated how community forestry in the Asia-Pacific region has great potential to be a pioneer in the drive to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Overall, RECOFTC’s work continues to contribute to an increase in community forests. As of September 2015…

Agricultural tractors with attached winches, grapple tongues and log trailers with cranes are the key machines for small-scale forestry work in developed countries. In the near future, a similar role is also foreseen in small-scale community forestry work in Asia and the Pacific.