community forestry Archives - Page 191 of 205

Conflict in collective forest tenure: Lessons for Peru from a comparative study

Key messages

In comparison with Indonesia, Uganda and Nepal, Peruvian law provides a weak mandate for tenure reform implementers to address conflict, and Peru has the lowest number of implementing officials stating that addressing conflict is among their responsibilities.
In the villages studied, Peru reports the highest proportion of villagers involved in land or forest conflicts, the highest proportion with actors external to the community and the lowest portion resolved.
Despite the legal significance of a land title, collective titling alone does not assure the end of land/forest disputes with outsiders. The state needs to defend the property rights that it has recognized.
Peru must improve its legal framework for conflict management in land/forest disputes both in and after formalization processes, drawing on state and customary, community or alternative mechanisms.

Gender lessons for climate initiatives: A comparative study of REDD+ impacts on subjective wellbeing

Although REDD+ is primarily a mechanism for reducing carbon emissions from forests, concerns regarding social benefits, wellbeing and gender are increasingly part of its mandate. This is consistent with the Paris Declaration as well as SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Critics have argued, however, that REDD+ design, both in policy and projects, does not take gender into account effectively, rather marginalizing women from decision making processes and exacerbating inequalities. Most of that research has been site specific or on single countries. This article uses data from a longitudinal study of subnational REDD+ initiatives in six countries to analyze their gendered impact on perceived wellbeing. Comparative research on subjective wellbeing was conducted at 62 villages participating in 16 REDD+ initiatives and 61 control villages at two periods in time, using a before-after-control-intervention (BACI) design. Focus groups with villagers (68% male) and women (100% female) permit a gendered comparison of definitions of wellbeing and outcomes of initiatives. The results highlight that while definitions of wellbeing overlapped between the two groups, almost half of the women’s focus groups thought that having their own source of income was important. Outcomes regarding wellbeing change suggest that perceived wellbeing decreased in REDD+ villages both for villagers as a whole and for women, relative to control villages, but the decrease was much worse for women – a decrease that is significantly associated with living in a REDD+ village. These declines may be due to unrealized expectations for REDD+, combined with little attention to gender in REDD+ initiatives, in spite of an important portion (46%) of specific interventions that women view positively. These interventions provide insights into potential ways forward. Overall, however, REDD+ initiatives appear to be repeating past mistakes, with insufficient attention to gender equality and safeguarding women’s rights. More effort needs to be paid to ensuring that gender is an integral part of future initiatives to combat climate change in rural communities.

Manejo integrado de florestas umidas neotropicais por industrias e comunidades: aplicando resultados de pesquisa, envolvendo atores e definindo politicas publicas: Simposio Internacional da IUFRO, Belem PA, Brazil, 4-7 Decembre, 2000

The book includes a selection of 37 contributions (all in the original language – 16 in Portuguese, 13 in English and 8 in Spanish – but with abstracts in English) presented to the International Symposium “Integrated Management of Neotropical Rainforests by Industries and Communities: Applying Research Results, Involving Stakeholders and Defining Policy”, held in Belem, Brazil, from December 4 – 7 , 2000. The symposium intended to contribute – by providing information and recommendations – to the efforts underway at different levels (local, national, regional) to improve the perspectives for a wider adoption of sustainable forest management in the neotropics. The papers are divided in the three themes of the Symposium: Industrial-scale forest management (16 contributions), Community forest management and extrativism (15) and Means to promote the adoption of sustainable forest management (6). Overall, the papers provide a wide variety of conceptual, methodological and technical aspects related to the planning and implementation of forest management under different conditions, as well as practical experiences, research results and recommendations to improve the quality of forest management by different actors.

Company–community partnership outgrower schemes in forestry plantations in Indonesia: an alternative to conventional rehabilitation programmes

Indonesia has a considerable area of degraded land requiring rehabilitation. However, most rehabilitation projects in the past have been government driven, depending on public funding (ndonesian government and international donors), and have focused mainly on technical aspects. As a result people living in surrounding targeted areas are not adopting rehabilitation techniques. Innovative approcahes are necessary if the objectives of a rehabilitation programme are to be met while providing benefits to private companies and local people. The findings of a study of outgrower schemes in Indonesian timber plantations suggested that company–community partnerships could be an alternative for implementing rehabilitation programmes. The partnership arrangement over a 10- to 45- year period is based on a contract. It states the rights and duties of each party in establishing a forestry plantation and the benefit-sharing agreement at the time of harvest. The schemes take place on logged-over forests and idle lands, mostly Imperata grasslands. The partnership provides opportunities for forestry plantation companies to play a social role and rehabilitate degraded resources. It also provides job opportunities to local people and incomes from harvested timber at the end of each rotation under a long-term contract.

Community forests as social enterprises – pathways to achieving local development in Cameroon

Social enterprises can be defined as non-profit making organizations that conduct business activities and are expected to generate profits that can be reinvested back into the local community to fund social and environmental causes. In Cameroon, community forests (CFs) are legal entities that are expected to generate profits which are then ploughed back to fund social development projects in their communities. Therefore, they could also be described as social enterprises. However, CFs in the country neither operate as social enterprises nor benefit the communities for several reasons. One reason could be the lack of understanding of what social enterprises really are. This document recommends that CFs be officially recognized as social enterprises in order to enjoy business support by the current infrastructure that is in place.

Community forestry and REDD+ in Cameroon: what future?

The Cameroonian Readiness Preparation Proposal recognizes community forests (CFs) as one strategy for implementing REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries). However, there has been little analysis of the extent to which CFs can help achieve REDD+ objectives in Cameroon. We explore options for REDD+ within CFs, as well as challenges and possible ways forward. Cocoa agroforestry in deforested or highly degraded CFs is currently the most competitive option for implementing REDD+ while delivering ecological, economic, and social cobenefits. Reduced-impact logging and conservation or natural regeneration are technically sound options for emissions reductions within CFs, but are unlikely to compete with other more profitable activities at the current low carbon market prices of approximately USD $5/tonne of carbon. However, these options could potentially compete under a social cost of carbon estimated at $43/tonne of carbon. The current CF architecture presents a set of factors that could favor REDD+ implementation, including: good legal and institutional frameworks and practices compatible with REDD+ safeguards, experience and knowledge in related payments for ecosystem services and performance-based finance pilots, and social capital in a community of practice. The CF architecture also features potentially inhibiting factors such as poor governance (notably, elite capture and corruption), unclear carbon rights, and financing challenges. We identify a set of enabling actions for delivery of REDD+ within CFs in Cameroon, which include: clarifying carbon rights; establishing a benefit-sharing mechanism from the national to the local level with clear rules for rewarding emission reductions in CFs; and building monitoring, reporting, and verification infrastructure for REDD+ within CFs. More importantly, adopting an integrated approach in which CFs serve multiple objectives, including ecosystem-based adaptation, REDD+, and the original community forestry objectives could enable drawing from both adaptation and mitigation finance, technical support, and provide long-term sustainable development benefits.

Prospects for Performance-Based Financing of Community Forestry in Cameroon

Community forestry was introduced in Cameroon roughly 20 years ago. Yet, the vast majority of community forest enterprises are still at infancy, despite tremendous support received so far. One major reason for the rather disappointing state of enterprises is the paucity in financing opportunities. Accountability and responsibility for delivery of results in past financing schemes have also been weak. Performance-Based Financing (PBF) approach known for its application in health care finance in development circles could contribute to improving the financing landscape of community forestry. This technical brief explores how the Dryad project, a five-year DFID financed initiative built around performance-based financing can contribute to enhancing enterprise and financing landscape in and around community forests in Cameroon and elsewhere.

Community-based forestry and livelihoods in the context of climate change adaptation

Community-based forest management (CBFM) is so far perceived as the best model for forest management in many developing countries. The contribution of CBFM in livelihoods of the local community is thought to be positive but the emerging contemporary discourse of climate change and its impacts on livelihoods is less recognized in CBFM modalities. In order to make the CBFM modalities more successful, there is a need to assess the linkages between climate change and community-based forest management in relation to climate change. It is crucial to explore adaptation practices that can help rural communities to respond effectively to climate change. The present collaborative research attempts to understand how climate change is affecting forest-dependent communities in one of the world’s most vulnerable regions, and the actual and potential adaptation measures that would enable communi-ties and community networks to remain resilient.

The contribution of agroforestry systems to reducing farmers’ dependence on the resources of adjacent national parks: a case study from Sumatra, Indonesia

There is much debate about the way conservation and development are best integrated to reduce the encroachment pressures of poor rural communities on the biodiversity resources of protected areas in the tropics. One frequently recommended instrument is to intensify farming systems in the adjacent areas, so as to decrease the need to harvest resources from national parks. This study examined this issue by analyzing the effects of different household land uses in villages near a national park on their propensity to harvest resources from the park. In the northern part of the Kerinci Seblat National Park (Sumatra Island, Indonesia) the park buffer zone is comprised largely of community or village forests and human settlements. The village forests were formerly managed as production forests and provided significant cash income to the village. They were converted into farmland, particularly to mixed-tree gardens or agroforests. Natural forest coverage has now declined to 10% of the former area within village forest land. We analyzed the characteristics of the mixed gardens and village forests, and their practical contribution to reducing farmers’ dependence on the adjacent national park resources. Households with farms that were more diversified were found to have much less dependency on the national park resources. Households that farmed only wetland rice fields registered the highest value of forest products obtained from inside the park. Households that farmed only mixed gardens had an intermediate level of park resource extraction, while those that had farms composed of both components (i.e. wetland rice fields and mixed gardens) had a dramatically lower level of economic dependency on park resources than households in either of the other two categories.

Alternate tenure and enterprise models in Cameroon: community forests in the context of community rights and forest landscapes

Cameroon’s forests are estimated to comprise 19,631,000 ha of which 4 percent are reserved for communities and the rest are allocated to reserves or private commercial timber operations. Within Central Africa, Cameroon is considered a leader in forest and resource-related development policies. It was the first country in Central Africa to allocate concessions through a competitive bidding process, allow communities to request the setting aside of areas as “community forest”, create a zoning plan for the dense forests in the Southern parts of the country, and to put substantial taxes on access to resource extraction areas. Cameroon’s significant forest zone population lends itself to the development of SMFEs (small and medium forest enterprises) and community enterprises that complement the large-scale, mainly export-oriented, concession forest industry

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