THE FOREST CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT ACT, 2016 No. 34 of 2016

Date of Assent: 31st August, 2016

Date of Commencement: By Notice

Almost 90 percent of the land area in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is ‘wooded’. Of the total land area of 23 million hectares, 15.8 million hectares (68 percent) are forest with more than 10 percent crown cover and 4.8 million hectares are classified as other wooded land with less than 10 percent crown cover. Recently, the government has attempted to stop shifting cultivation through land-use planning and land allocation. Lessons from these efforts have contributed to recognition of the need for the current revision of land and forest policy and legislation.

This training manual has thus been developed to enhance the knowledge and skills in gender mainstreaming, including gender analysis and the integration of the findings from the analysis into the design of forestry interventions. This manual is particularly relevant for forestry-related interventions and practices that seek to promote participation and reduce the inequality that exists between forestdependent women and men, especially among marginalized people living in rural areas.

More than 80 percent of Nepal’s population of 30 million lives in rural areas with agriculture as their main livelihood. About 39 percent of Nepal’s land area of 5.5 million ha is defined as forest land whereas the forested area with 10 percent crown cover is estimated at 25 percent or 3.6 million ha of the land area. Most of the forests are located in the hills and low mountains, where the bulk of the community forests are also found. Recent data from the Department of Forests (DoF) indicates that 18 334 user groups, involving 2.24 million households, presently manage 1.7 million ha.

Seventy percent of Indonesia’s land area (128 million ha) is classified as forest land. Estimates of the number of villages located on these lands vary from 25 000 to 33 000 with an estimated population of 50 to 70 million people. Many of these inhabitants claim customary rights to around 40 million ha of state forest land, claims that were recently recognized, in principle, in a ruling of the Constitutional Court on 16 May 2013.

Decentralized forest management is an important policy issue in India and elsewhere. Yet there are few careful studies of the impacts of community forestry. The authors try to fill this gap by analyzing National Sample Survey data from 524 villages in five states in India. Their analysis seeks to answer two key questions: (1) Who participates in community forestry and what are the determinants of participation? (2) What is the impact of participation on household fuelwood consumption?

In the Mekong region, conflicts between local communities and large scale land concessions are widespread. They are often difficult to solve. In Cambodia, an innovative approach to conflict resolution was tested in a case involving a private company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), and several indigenous communities who lost some of their customary lands and forests when the company obtained a concession to grow rubber in the Province of Ratanakiri. The approach was developed by CSOs Equitable Cambodia (EC) and Inclusive Development International (IDI) with the support of QDF funding from MRLG.

This report takes place within the framework of the regional project “Maximize the production of goods and services of Mediterranean forest ecosystems in the context of global changes” (2012-2016) financed by the French Global Environment Facility together with the German Cooperation (GIZ), the French Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood and Forestry, and the European Union, in 5 North African (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) and the Middle East countries (Lebanon, Turkey).

In this context, RECOFTC and USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific have developed a framework for better understanding and assessing climate change vulnerabilities in a context of multiple competing interests in a CF landscape. The pilot site for developing this approach was a women-led Community Forestry User Group (CFUG) in the Terai of Nepal; the Bishnupur community forest. The context in Bishnupur reflects challenges associated with the ecologically fragile Chure Forest, but also one of growing opportunities for economic development due to the close proximity of the Indian border.

This issue includes the following
headings: Changes in Poverty and Female-Headed Households in
Africa; Growth and Capital Inflows in Africa; Growth and
Capital Inflows in Africa; Vulnerability to Climate Change
in Coastal Bangladesh; Improving Agricultural Data for
Better Policies; Enhancing Transparency of Large-Scale Land
Acquisition; Explaining the Gender Gap in Agricultural
Productivity; Changing Patterns of Growth and Poverty

Community Forestry (CF) can play a fundamental role in achieving nearly all the SDGs through its focus on improving livelihoods, strengthening local governanceand, halting deforestation and improving forest quality.Various experiences of CF in the region have demonstrated that the allocation of forest management rights and responsibilities to local people is an effective strategy for sustainable forest management and provides potential contribution to improved outcomes for forest cover and condition and local livelihoods.

La falta de acceso a recursos financieros es una de las razones por las que no se llevan a cabo actividades e inversiones forestales, a pesar de ser atractivas económica, social y ambientalmente. Es necesario, por tanto, una mejor comunicación e intercambio de información a fin de desarrollar estrategias e instrumentos financieros que sean sostenibles y adecuados a las necesidades del Manejo Forestal Comunitario (MFC). El presente documento realizará una revisión de los antecedentes sobre el financiamiento y los aspectos institucionales para el MFC en el ámbito de la Amazonía peruana.