“Invest in us for sustainable forests”
The call from community forest members, indigenous peoples and smallholders from Asia ahead of the XIV World Forestry Congress.
“Invest in us for sustainable forests”
30 July 2015 News
Local people from forest communities in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam and came together in Bangkok recently to discuss forest issues that are priorities for them and to prepare for the upcoming XIV World Forestry Congress.
The Congress, which is the largest and most significant gathering of the world's forestry sector, takes place in Durban, South Africa this September.
“As one of the few observers here, and being responsible for supporting smallholder certification, it was great to hear about the issues and priorities for Asian communities,” reported Richard Laity, PEFC South East Asia, Projects and Development Officer. “We want to ensure that certification is inclusive by working closely with these forest communities, while we develop national forest certification systems.”
“As PEFC history demonstrates, it has proven to work for smallholders, and as we expand into countries in Asia we want to make sure it continues to be a robust but cost-effective, appropriate and practical tool,” Mr. Laity concluded.
At the meeting, participants identified four priority areas, from local perspectives, that forest decision-makers must invest in for forests to be managed sustainably:
- Participatory processes for policy and enabling regulatory framework development
- Formalizing tenure rights and the establishment of community forests
- Funds and resources for community forest implementation, and livelihoods/enterprise development
- Capacity development for leadership empowerment, information access, network advocacy
Under the four areas, solutions and best practices were identified, along with specific actions and investments needed to scale these up – to be shared and influence forest decision-makers on the global level at the World Forestry Congress.
At the end of the meeting, the local people participating in the meeting voted and elected four local people to represent them on the global level at the upcoming World Forestry Congress in South Africa in September 2015.
“If you want your country to be green, you need to invest in local communities,” said Mr Krirk Meemungkit, a forest farm smallholder from Thailand. “I make my livelihood from a sustainable forest plantation, and I’m using my knowledge to benefit other local people so they can also develop sustainable forest plantations, and in turn they are teaching other local people how to do this.”
Dr. Ha, Senior Lecturer at Hue University and Coordinator of the Agricord Cooperative Alliance/PEFC Pilot Project highlighted the progress of this pilot project in strengthening the forest producer organizations of Thua Thien Hue and Quang Tri Provinces in central Vietnam.
“Through our pilot project we have already seen promising results in the use of PEFC as a mechanism for the private sector to invest in communities. This is very important as our partners, the cooperative alliances of Quang Ngai and Tu Thien Hue, represent and can improve the livelihoods of thousands of members with forests,” said Dr. Ha. “In addition, using existing structures such as cooperatives enables inclusion of members while causing the least burden for complying with international market requirements.”
PEFC International Stakeholder member RECOFTC, which focuses on empowering local people through participatory processes and promoting forestry from local peoples' perspectives in Asia, conducted the meeting with simultaneous translation in seven languages. The process enabled local people, who are often time not directly included in regional meetings (as they are frequently conducted in English) to participate fully.
PEFC International and RECOFTC, along with several other organizations, will be convening a workshop on Tuesday 8 September at the World Forestry Congress to enable representatives of community forest members, smallholders and indigenous peoples from Asia and the Pacific region to present their messages and calls to action, ensuring that they are allowed to manage their forests in a sustainable manner.