The World Bank Group (WBG) has a long
experience in engaging in biodiversity with world-class
expertise in the field. It has been the single largest
funder of biodiversity investments since the late 1980s. The
WBG investments have largely been of two kinds: (1)
investments in biodiversity, aimed at the conservation and
sustainable use of species, habitats, and ecosystems that
sustain healthy ecosystems, while enhancing people's

Community forestry offers a tried and true model for approaching national Safeguard Information Systems (SIS) under REDD+. RECOFTC agrees with the global consensus that REDD+ SIS should be based upon existing, equitable and participatory systems.

Diễn đàn lâm nghiệp cộng đồng lần thứ nhất thu hút sự tham gia của hơn 60 đại biểu từ khu vực công, khu vực tư nhân, và khu vực phát triển, cùng với đại diện các cơ quan nghiên cứu và đào tạo cũng như các cộng đồng làm lâm nghiệp, những người muốn chia sẻ thành tựu và bày tỏ nhu cầu cũng như nguyện vọng của bản thân về vấn đề lâm nghiệp cộng đồng.

The stories in this report illustrate the invaluable contributions being made by community members, pioneering government personnel and others who are actively participating in forest management – leading to improved livelihoods, and more equity and a fairer share of benefits. The stories highlight the challenges faced and opportunities created by people in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Viet Nam who are promoting community forestry.

Research from seven countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) in the Asia-Pacific region shows that sustainable practices are inherent to the community forestry enterprise (CFE) business model and vital for communities to sustain and enhance their livelihoods. Preliminary research findings based on two cases in Lao PDR and Thailand are shared in this working paper.

Miombo woodlands stretch across Southern
Africa in a belt from Angola and the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) in the west to Mozambique in the east. The
miombo region covers an area of around 2.4 million km. In
some areas, miombo has been highly degraded as a result of
human use (southern Malawi and parts of Zimbabwe), while in
others, it remains relatively intact (such as in parts of
northern Mozambique, and in isolated areas of Angola and the

This forest policy note was prepared to
provide input to the ongoing forest sector reform in Kenya
on participation in sustainable forest management. It offers
recommendations on possible priority forest policy actions
within the forthcoming Natural Resource Management (NRM)
Project. The latter focuses enhancing the capacity of
Kenyans to manage the natural resource base and resources
available to poor and vulnerable communities. By outlining

Central control of forests takes
management responsibility away from the communities most
dependent on them, inevitably resulting in tensions. Like
many African countries, Tanzania--which has forest or
woodland cover over 30-40 percent of its land--established
central forestry institutions at a time when there was
little need for active management and protection because
population pressures were low. But in the face of scarce

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Over the past two decades, the Government of Vietnam (GoV) has experimented with a variety of policies seeking to include local people in sustainable forest management. For example, Decree 02/CP (dated January 1994) marked a radical move in shifting forest management responsibility away from state organizations to individual households. IGOs are expected to encourage local people’s participation in forest management, which would make a significant contribution to sustainable forest management.

The urgent need to limit anthropogenic
carbon emissions has led to a global initiative to Reduce
Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+).
But designing national architectures for REDD+ that
integrate local actions on forests with national-level
outcomes and do so effectively, efficiently, and equitably
continues to be challenging. One option to facilitate the
design and implementation of REDD+ is to learn from the

The World Bank's revised forest
policy came into being in 2002 and covers all types of
forests. It has the following key objectives: (i) harnessing
the potential of forests to reduce poverty in a sustainable
manner; (ii) integrating forests effectively into
sustainable development; and (iii) protecting vital local
and global environmental services and values. The policy
enables the bank to fully engage in forestry throughout the