Since 2009 RECOFTC through the Grassroots for Capacity Building for REDD+ in Asia project have been working to develop capacities of local partners in five countries (Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal and Viet Nam) to facilitate awareness raising on and initiatives to deal with climate change and REDD+.

Up to 2.5 billion people depend on indigenous and community lands, which make up over 50 percent of the land on the planet; they legally own just one-fifth. The remaining five billion hectares remain unprotected and vulnerable to land grabs from more powerful entities like governments and corporations.

During revolution and national unification, Vietnamese government nationalized agricultural and forest land throughout the country. While agricultural land was de-collectivized in the Doi moi reforms since mid-1980s, the majority of forest and forest land has continued to be managed by state enterprises. For members of Vietnam’s 53 recognized ethnic minority groups, the formation of state-owned forest enterprises (SFEs) has meant the end of customary tenure arrangements, leading to exclusion from traditional lands used for agriculture, hunting, and collection of non-timber forest products.

Este relatório apresenta os dados detalhados de um trabalho feito por investigadores da EIA em Moçambique e apontando as discrepâncias dos dados do comércio de madeira, este relatório providencia provas convincentes sobre como a demanda insaciável da China por madeira está diretamente conduzindo ao corte ilegal e ao contrabando de madeira em Moçambique, roubando deste país empobrecido recursos significantes.

Community-based forestry (CBF) includes “initiatives, sciences, policies, institutions and processes that are intended to increase the role of local people in governing and managing forest resources” (RECOFTC, 2013). It includes formalized customary and indigenous processes as well as government-led initiatives.

Through the implementation of a choice experiment valuation exercise, this study set out to identify the set of community plantation attributes that impact the welfare of potential community forestry program participants. We employed a combination of choice models to evaluate the preferences, welfare impacts and choice elasticities associated with alternative community forestry programs, allowing for different assumptions regarding heterogeneity.

As a large proportion of the rural private sector, forest and farm producers are the primary actors in rural transformation and sustainable development. They possess knowledge and experience essential to shaping effective successful policies and actions. Through its support to local and national producer organizations, the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) is working to ensure forest and farm producers are involved in national decision-making processes that impact their livelihoods and the sustainable management of forests, in turn helping to achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals.

This book made an attempt to bring together various legislative protections available to the tribals communities pertaining to the land and governance in the scheduled areas and the role of different institutions to achieve the goals enshrined in the Constitution. It examined the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and its various provisions and special arrangements made for areas inhabited by Scheduled Tribes and the law relating to local self governance in these areas, primarily through village panchayat-an institution of local self governance.

This poster is a summary of approaches and activities of the Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+ in Asia project that are implemented in five countries: Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal and Viet Nam. The poster is developed to offer a snapshot on the overall strategic approaches and results used by the project to develop and strengthen the capacities of the grassroots stakeholders in raising awareness and influence attitudes change about climate changes and REDD+ on the ground.

Community forestry – as promoted by RECOFTC – provides an effective and cross-cutting solution that is aligned with the SDGs. This includes SDG goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. RECOFTC has long understood that the long-term viability of community forest management is dependent on the inclusion of women. RECOFTC works to ensure that policies and programs of forestry stakeholders mainstream gender dimensions so that they are not at risk of creating or exacerbating inequalities, and ignoring women’s contribution to livelihoods.

Local communities and state forest actors, such as Protection Forest Management Boards (PFMBs), State Forest Companies (SFCs), play equally important roles in forest resource management. Yet local communities have limited legal rights. This is one reason that leads to a lack of forest ownership for local communities. In order to support local communities to effectively engage in sustainable forest management and livelihood development, a fuller set of rights should be legally given to them.

This paper summarizes key discussions from the 1st ASEAN-Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change (ASFCC) Learning Group workshop organized by RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests in August 2015. The discussions highlight a number of ways community forestry (CF) can support local communities in adapting to climate change.