2008

• Community forest management: A new and inspiring FoEI publication

2007

• Thailand’s Community Forest Bill: Who does the military government think it’s good for?
• Cameroon: Community forests in a sea of industrial logging
• Costa Rica: An ecological forest restoration proposal

2006

• Gambia: Where the rural population is at the centre of forest management

• Gambia: Bee-keeping as a tool for forest protection and restoration
• Cambodia: Sustainable use of the forest by villagers
• Africa: Mapping forests by their real guardians

2005

• Mumbai-Porto Alegre Forest Initiative: Linking the struggle against plantations with alternative local uses of forest
• Cameroon: What poverty means to the Bagyeli people
• India: Adivasis and forest management
• Laos: In the cooking pot - indigenous Katu diet and livelihoods
• Affluence without abundance: the hunter-gatherers --a sound road to health?
• India: Women’s knowledge and power in forest societies
• Indonesia: Wonosobo forest managed by the community
• The Great “Community Forest Management” Swindle In India – critical evaluation of an ongoing World bank-financed project in Andhra Pradesh

2004

• The Mumbai Porto-Alegre Forest Initiative
• Melanesia: Community-Based Ecoforestry Protecting Forests
• United Nations Forum on Forests: Highlights from the sidelines
• Community View from UNFF: Interview with Freddy Molina, ACICAFOC
• Special Bulletin on CBFM
• Women’s Land Tenure Security and Community-Based Forest Management
• Women, Forests, and Adaptive Collaborative Management

2003

• Indonesia: The Dayak People in the First Co-managed Protected Area
• Senegal: Women's project restores nature and benefits the community
• Bolivia: Community-Based Forest Management in the history of the indigenous peoples
• Papua New Guinea: Small-scale sawmilling a good way forward

2002

• Samoa: A civil society approach to ensure Community-Based Forest Management
• Tanzania: Conservation should be with the people
• Panama: The experience of Apaquiset in Community-Based resource management
• India: The need for community control over natural resources
• Nepal: An experience of Community-Based Forest Management
• Tanzania: Improving forest management through joint management with communities
• Special Bulletin on CBFM
• Wilderness Parks or Community Conservation?
• Community Forest Management: A feasible and necessary alternative
• Indonesia: The alternative approach of community forest management
• Côte d'Ivoire: The sacred forest, a community protected area
• Gambia: A case of community forest management
• Ghana: Ancient tradition in community forest management
• Philippines: Lessons on gender from Community-Based Forest Management
• Tanzania: Community-Based Forest Management as a way forward for conservation
• Tanzania: Traditional knowledge in forest restoration
• Thailand: Senate blocks draft community forest bill

2001

• Cambodia: Timber concessions vs community forests
• Chile: Community forestry as an alternative model
• Eritrea: Sustainable forest use threatened by government policies
• India: Gender bias and disempowerment in World Bank-funded forestry projects
• Cameroon: Unequal equality between community forests and logging companies
• Kenya: International campaign for the Ogiek

2000

• Solomon Islands: A sustainable alternative to unsustainable logging
• Thailand: A diversity-based community forest management system
• Guatemala: Community forest concession initiative at Petén questioned
• Chile: Forest management by indigenous communities

1998

• Guatemala: Communities take care of forests

WRM SPECIAL BULLETINS ON CBFM

Special Bulletin Nº - May 2004 ( complete version)

The fact that forests continue to disappear does not mean that the direct and underlying causes of deforestation are not well-known. They are. What are much less well-known are the causes of forest conservation. However, in the tropics it is quite clear that wherever there is a forest in good condition, in most cases there is an indigenous or local community living there. They need the forest and hold the knowledge to use it sustainably. The obvious solution for the forest crisis is thus to empower local communities and to create the necessary conditions for enabling them to manage forests adequately. By sharing analyses and concrete experiences on community-based forest management, we hope that this bulletin will be a contribution to that aim.

Special Bulletin Nº 63 - October 2002 (complete version)

For centuries, local communities benefited from sustainable forest use. However, centralized control over natural resources has for many years now been eroding local rights and resulting in extensive deforestation processes. The current disaster --generated by state and corporate driven activities in forests-- shows the need to change course and to put forest management back again in the hands of local communities. The industrial model has clearly failed to ensure forest conservation, while community-based approaches show that the improvement of peoples' livelihoods is compatible with the sustainable use of forests.

OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

• Propriété contre possession. Les conflits éco-sociaux liés aux plantations industrielles d’arbres dans le Sud - Julien-François Gerber - August 2006 (only in French)

• La restauración ecologista del bosque tropical. Una alternativa de reforestación ambientalmente sana y socialmente justa y participativa.
  por Javier Baltodano - marzo 2004 (only in Spanish)

• La madera, el bosque y la gente. Propuesta ecologista para producir madera respetando el bosque y las comumidades. (only in Spanish)
  por Javier Baltodano - setiembre 2003

• Empowering the Poor. Community-based Environmental and Financial Management in Adilabad District, India

• The Initiative on Promoting Good Forest Governance in Asia-Pacific. Forsts: Used by many, Managed by few, Governed by whom?
  Recoftc Training and workshop report series 2002/04

• The Common Property and the Community Forest Management in the Brazilian Amazon Forest
  José Heder Benatti

• Communities and Forest Management in South Asia
  The international Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management
  September 2000

• The political economy of community forestry in Africa- Getting the power relations right
  by Liz Alden Wily - September 2002
  Forests, Trees and People Newsletter No. 46

• Roots of legitimacy: Ecosystem-based and Community-based Forest Management
  Global Forests, Global Citizens A Discussion Paper Series on the Future of Forests and Communities.
  International Network of Forests and Communities

• Natural and Cultural Assets and Participatory Forest Management in West Africa
  by Kojo Sebastian Amanor (University of Ghana)
  December 2003

• Towards Sustainability and Development of the Community-Based Forest Resource Management System through Ensuring the Women’s Land Tenure Security (A Case Study in Malasari and Mekarsari Villages in Halimun Ecosystem Area)
  by RMI – The Indonesian Institute for Forest and Environment

• Bridging the Gap: Communities, Forests and International Networks
  Synthesis Report of the Project 'Learning Lessons from International Community Forestry Networks' (also available in French - 1.5 MB and Spanish - 1.6 MB) CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 41
  by Marcus Colchester, Tejaswini Apte, Michel Laforge, Alois Mandondo and Neema Pathak

• Reclaiming the Forests? People's Participation in Forest Management, East India
  by Jo Lawbuary

• El manejo comunitario de la selva y el engaño de la economía (only in Spanish)
  por Hildebrando Vélez G. - febrero 2002

• Participatory Forest Management - Restoring Ecological Health and Enhancing Economic Opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa
  by Todd Beer

• Local Strategies for Forest Protection, Economic Welfare and Social Justice
  by Paul Wolvekamp

• Résumé de l'etude de la biodiversite de la forêt Igbodja - Benin
  Stéphan OGOU, Ir. - Executive Director, ACTION Plus NGO

• Foresterie Communautaire et Réduction de la Pauvreté rurale au Cameroun: Bilan et tendances de la première décennie
  par Patrice Bigombe

• Participatory forest management in Africa. An overview of progress and issues
  by Liz Alden Wily

• Experiencias de la Federación Awá del Ecuador en el manejo y conservación de su territorio
  por Hermes Cuasaluzán y Jaime Levy (Federación de Centros Awá del Ecuador / ALTRÓPICO)

• Contribution of Community Forestry to People's Livelihoods and Forest Sustainability: Experience from Nepal
  by Dr Bharat K. Pokharel

• Electronic bulletins or Discussion lists

  • RECOFT e-letter
    This bi-weekly electronic letter provides news and information on community forestry related activities and issues throughout the Asia and Pacific region. To subscribe to the e-letter click here

  • NNFP's Forest Community News
    Internet newsletter that provides timely information about policies and politics, on-the-ground projects, funding sources, community-based research, interesting events, and job listings. To subscribe to the newsletter click here

Global Caucus on Community-Based Forest Management

In May 2002, a number of people attending the 4th Preparatory Meeting for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), decided to group themselves under a common banner in order to influence government delegates on the need for the global community to recognize community-based and indigenous forest management as a viable tool for alleviating poverty and sustaining the Earth's environment.

After just a few days of organizing --and despite warnings that they were beginning their efforts too late-- they were successful in securing this recognition in text being negotiated by the delegates. The Global Caucus on Community-Based Forest Management was thus born.

The Caucus, which currently includes more than 200 members from over 30 countries held again a number of meetings and carried out numerous activities some months later at the Johannesburg Summit. Rumors about the Caucus' effectiveness spread, and it was invited to facilitate an open forum on forests, the results of which was formally transmitted to the UN.

In the coming months and years, Caucus members look forward to joining forces to support community-based and indigenous forestry worldwide, through such activities as sharing knowledge and skills, collaborating on the ground, and providing a meaningful voice for forest peoples in policy development. Some Caucus members have already begun working together on community-based monitoring projects and the challenges of protected areas among others.

• Strategizing for the future: exploring goals

• Vision - Mission - Principles

• Regional focal points

• Community-Based Forest Management brochure

• “Community Forests in Review” - first annual bulletin of the Global Caucus on Community Based Forest Management (September 2004)

• Get Involved - If you are interested in learning more about
  community forestry or joining the Caucus, please contact Lisa Ambus
  at: cbfm@shaw.ca (Facilitator, Global Caucus on CBFM)

• To join the Caucus list-serve just send a blank email to:
  globalcbfm-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
  Once you're on, send a quick note introducing yourself to the group.

• Forests and Communities web page

• Global Caucus on Community Based Forest Management
  web page: http://www.gccbfm.org/
  contact: info@gccbfm.org

A global movement for peoples´ rights and forest conservation

A number of participants at the World Social Forum 2004 met in Mumbai believing that forest issues are in essence social and political and that forest communities are increasingly affected by globalization -and new forms of trade and economic liberalization that comes in its way. They agreed on the need to create a global movement to ensure forest conservation and peoples' rights over forests. The principles on which the movement would be based were agreed upon and circulated by the groups as the Mumbai Forest Initiative -Statement of Principles

A year later the group and some other participants of the World Social Forum 2005 met in Porto Alegre, Brazil, reviewed and revised the Mumbai forest initiative.

The result is the Mumbai - Porto Alegre Forest Initiative.

LINKS