Community forestry can be part of an approach that ensures important rights such as basic livelihood needs, forest access and tenure and participation in decision-making are met. It also provides a basket of multiple benefits with the potential to incentivise sustainable forest management whether or not carbon payments come through.

Climate change-induced agriculture failures will increase the reliance of rural communities on forest resources to make ends meet, particularly for communities with the least household assets. Women in rural communities will be especially impacted by climate change, as traditionally, they are responsible for ensuring household food security and collecting food from the forest.

Changing weather patterns, declining agricultural productivity and health impacts have already spurred adaptive responses in communities across Nepal. Local coping strategies currently being employed include: crop diversification, rainwater collection, grass cultivation in forest areas, shifting natural resource based livelihoods to livestock, seasonal migration (to urban areas), storing grain seed fodder and grasses as well as a number of practices specifically related to sustainable forest management.

RECOFTC - The Center for People and Forests with support from USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific are working to empower local women in the village of Bishnupur, Nepal to take climate action into their own hands and protect their community's vital forestry resources.

Bhutan has recently made significant
progress in sustaining economic growth and reducing poverty.
Bhutan also has valuable deposits of primary materials
including dolomite, lime stone, gypsum, quartzite, stone,
and marble, which are useful for fabrication of other
materials. Thus, a significant part of Bhutan's current
and prospective economic gains come from use of natural
resources called, green sectors. The basic message in this

... This paper attempts to analyse the key aspects of reforms required to ‘democratise’ Myanmar's timber trade, and the political–economic interests contributing or obstructing reform. The main aim of this paper is to assess the prospects for reform of Myanmar's timber sector in light of theemerging FLEGT process, and to apply a political ecological analysis to the ways in which the political–economic power balance will determine the outcomes.

The new book Forests under Pressure: Local Responses to Global Issues is the third major publication produced by the Special Project World Forests, Society and Environment (WFSE) of the International Union of Forest Research Organization (IUFRO). The book was launched at the WFSE Technical Session during the IUFRO World Congress, October 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, and is the result of the collaborative work of over 140 scientists and experts, as well as over 60 reviewers.

..."This Working Paper examines options for improved sustainability and economic viability for community forest in Myanmar (See also Wode et al 2014). It was prepared under an EU-FAO Regional FLEGT Programme project implemented by Fauna & Flora International that is
exploring opportunities and constraints for commercial timber production from community forests.

... The National Community Forestry Instruction (1995) provides communities the opportunity for 30 year licenses to manage state forests lands for natural forest protection, mixed agro-forestry and timber production systems. The Forestry Master Plan (2001) envisions around 920,000 ha to be handed to local Forest User Groups (FUGs) by 2030, about 1.36% of the total land area.

... We here examine several options for independent certification of community forests with a view to legal timber harvest.

A number of certification standards and types have been developed world-wide, with the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC; www.pefc.org)
and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC; info.fsc.org) being the most widely recognised standards for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) and Chain of Custody (CoC) certification.

This paper explores the available
literature on participatory approaches to development as an
input to the operations evaluation department (OED)
evaluation of World Bank-supported community-based
development (CBD) and community-driven development (CDD)
interventions. Participatory approaches to development have
gained substantial support in the international community
over the past quarter century, and have become increasingly

This report analyzes the experience
of Cambodia with the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
process3. The focus of the report is on evaluating the
performance of the World Bank in supporting the PRSP
initiative, not on appraising the authorities policies.
Given the early stage of the PRS Process, with the document
only formally launched by government in March 2003, the
report focuses on the process of PRSP formulation in