Community Forestry International Programs
Thu, Oct 18 2007

New community forestry laws, regulations, and policies are emerging across Asia as the region’s nations attempt to formally integrate rural villages into management systems for public lands. In some countries, such as Vietnam and Thailand, the devolution of forest rights and responsibilities is being transferred through national decentralization legislation, while in India, Nepal, and Cambodia specialized CF related decrees and resolutions have been approved. In Indonesia and the Philippines, a blend of decentralization and CF programs are guiding community engagement in public lands.

Enabling legislation and a supportive policy framework are critical to the success of historic initiatives to reform public forest land management in Asia and engage tens of millions of low income rural families in productive stewardship. CFI’s staff and it partners have extensively explored the complex legal history of a number of Asia nations in order to document the evolution of forest laws. In some Asian nations community resource rights were recognized in the pre-colonial and earlier colonial era, only to diminish as the authority and reach of the central government grew. In some cases restrictive and antagonistic of forest people. Since the 1980s, however, there has been growing recognition among legislators and policy makers that forest-dependent communities are important stakeholders and strategic managers. From a legal and policy standpoint, legislators and planners must not only to create new laws to guide public forest land reform, but to bring prior legislation and court decisions into conformity with new national management systems. CFI seeks to understand the process of forestry law and policy transitions underway in Asia, and inform them where possible through the exchange of experience.