This paper highlights the spatial linkages of forest quality with poverty incidence and poverty density in Vietnam. Most of the Vietnamese poor live in densely populated river deltas and cities while remote upland areas have the highest poverty incidences, gaps, and severities. Forests of high local and global value are located in areas where relatively few poor people live, but where the incidence, gap, and severity of poverty are strongest, and where the livelihood strategies are based on agricultural and forest activities.

This manual is a participatory methods guide (1) to assist those involved with multiple stakeholder situations or groups to appreciate and acknowledge the relevance and impact of micro-politics on stakeholder relations and resultant cooperative behaviour in these groups; (2) to provide a simple and systematic approach or framework to gather and analyse data on micro-politics among multiple stakeholders; (3) to highlight and offer practical suggestions for dealing with some of the methodological issues that influence gathering data on politics and relations among stakeholders; (4) to suggest

This paper proposes a method for identifying and defining the most significant actors in sustain- able forest management. A rationale for the importance of differentiating among various forest stakeholders is first provided. Significant stakeholders identified in forest management units in Kalimantan, Côte d'Ivoire, and the USA. are described.

Who Counts Most? Assessing Human Well-Being in Sustainable Forest Management presents a tool, ‘the Who Counts Matrix’, for differentiating ‘forest actors’, or people whose well-being and forest management are intimately intertwined, from other stakeholders. The authors argue for focusing formal attention on forest actors in efforts to develop sustainable forest management.

This is a legal toolkit to help decision-makers use laws to reduce forest conversion and minimise the environmental and social impacts of deforestation. It offers countries a starting point to reform laws governing forest conversion.

Using legal analysis from nine tropical countries, the toolkit identifies key risks associated with unclear forest conversion laws and provides lawmakers with guidance on the questions they should ask themselves when writing or reforming forest conversion laws on five key areas:

·         Clarity around the allocation of land

Includes what is the problem and what can be done?; the law and customary land rights; how does Forest Law treat customary land rights?; lessons from other African states; the way forward. Argues that the current de jure reality is that most rural Cameroonians are little more than squatters on their own land with regard to forests and other land assets.

Thinking about forest management has undergone important changes over the last two decades. These changes have inspired attention to the reform of forest laws on a range of subjects, from forest planning and utilization to governance and trade. From its traditional narrow focus on government control and management of forests, modern forest law has expanded to encompass attention to environmental and social goals and to accommodating the interests of multiple stakeholders in forest management.

The webinar on the Forest Rights and Governance in India took place on 30 January, 2018. The webinar discussed why has there been variation in the implementation of the Forest Rights Act and identified institutional bottlenecks to upscaling its implementation, as well as lessons learned from existing best practices.
The webinar addressed implementation of the Forest Rights Act, its inclusion of traditional forest dwellers - men and women, innovations that have proven successful, and questions of governance and its impact on the forest rights discourse and policies.

La clé du succès de la foresterie communautaire réside dans la clarté et la cohérence des lois qui la régissent. Pour la première fois de son histoire, la République du Congo élabore un cadre juridique encadrant la foresterie communautaire. Cela constitue une opportunité unique pour les décideurs politiques de développer un cadre juridique favorable et exhaustif au profit des communautés.

This executive summary offers recommendations based on lessons learned from Ghana, Liberia and RoC, for other countries of West and Central Africa who are considering how to embed REDD+ social safeguards into their national laws.

The full report is available from here.

L’Afrique de l’Ouest et centrale abrite 25 % des forêts tropicales de la planète. La déforestation y est une préoccupation centrale au défi climatique. Face à cette menace, des lois nationales visent à protéger et à restaurer les forêts, ainsi qu’à encadrer leur utilisation pour le développement national.

This toolkit identifies common key questions that decision-makers can use to develop or review laws on community forestry.