In what is a big step towards commercial community forestry, Cambodia’s Forest Administration, in partnership with RECOFTC and with technical assistance and funding from the Wildlife Conservation Society, began pilot testing in 2008 community-based production forestry in the Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area. It is an innovation unlike any other in the region in which communities are allowed to set up forest-logging operations in buffer-zone forest.

Land-degradation neutral world is an aspirational goal, which was agreed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012. To achieve this goal, land degradation should be avoided and for every hectare of degraded land a hectare of land should be restored preferably in the same ecosystem and landscape. A land-degradation neutral world is a prerequisite for assuring water, food and energy security, alleviating poverty and mitigating climate change.

Wood energy is vital to the livelihoods of rural communities in the Mekong region, where over five times more fuelwood than timber is extracted for daily use. However, the energy needs of the community are commonly not factored into the establishment of market-oriented enterprises, which can lead to supply disruptions and subsequent impact on income as well as the environment. Hence, the importance of establishing sustainable community forest (CF) management, to ensure a stable provision of wood energy and to prevent gaps in supply and demand is significant.

Forinfo aims to strengthen the capacity of the Provincial Agriculture and Forestry Office (PAFO) by supporting the implementation of improved bamboo management within the two concession areas in Meung district. The project is partnering with officials from the Government of Lao PDR (GoL), from the national to district level, private enterprises, community associations, and other NGOs to foster a wider stakeholder responsibility and ownership of the activities.

The main objective of the handbook is to support local trainers and facilitators who are already familiar with climate change and REDD+. It provides them with useful information on gender considerations for climate change and REDD+ related training and capacity development programs.

Building on a very successful previous strategic phase, the new RECOFTC Strategic Plan (2013-2018) has an increased focus on clearer strategic outcomes in RECOFTC’s four thematic areas: Securing Community Forestry; Enhancing Livelihoods and Markets; People, Forests and Climate Change; and Transforming Forest Conflicts. Within these thematic areas, we explore emerging issues, including landscape approaches, food security, water security, and biomass energy security.

This report reflects analysis of the current situation of community forestry in the Asia–Pacific region. The study indicates that people will conserve biodiversity, reduce deforestation and manage forests sustainably when they derive regular benefits from them and when they are empowered to participate in decision-making processes regarding those forests.

Quantification of global forest change has been lacking despite the recognized importance of forest ecosystem services. In this study, Earth observation satellite data were used to map global forest loss (2.3 million square kilometers) and gain (0.8 million square kilometers) from 2000 to 2012 at a spatial resolution of 30 meters. The tropics were the only climate domain to exhibit a trend, with forest loss increasing by 2101 square kilometers per year.

Since 2009, RECOFTC has been implementing a regional project on Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+, through the support of Norad, with the aim of promoting the effective engagement of diverse grassroots stakeholders in the climate change and REDD+ dialogues in Asia-Pacific region.

Research was conducted in Alutilla Valley in eastern Bangladesh to identify the nature of existing agroforestry systems and to identify potential agroforestry models that could ameliorate currently degrading forest resources Data were collected through farmer participatory research and a structured quarterly survey in two villages. Qualitative and supplementary quantitative analysis methods were used to assess the financial potential of agroforestry systems.

millions fed, food security, Community forestry, Civil society, CFUG,

Authors: Roe, D.; Sunderland, T.C.H