The Regional Case Study Series describes how national CFM policy formulation and application unfold involving local communities and other actors. The case studies suggest that long term investment in building the capacity of communities and governments in forest management is key to sustainability.

Covering the countries of Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam, the series contains:

• Experiences of communities and team members in the policy formulation and implementation cycle
• Strategies and methods in the dialogue cycle, diagnostic assessment, organizational development, negotiating agreements with stakeholders, resource mapping and management planning
• Partnerships in resource management between communities and local governments
• Processes for building community abilities and confidence to protect and regulate access to natural resources

A Regional Synthesis paper wraps up the case study series drawing trends in policy development and implementation based on the experiences of the five countries involved. While the case studies provide a country focus, the synthesis elevates the discussion of themes such as governance, partnerships, strategies and approaches to a broader perspective. It is interesting to see the convergence and dynamic interplay of policy formulation and implementation with how communities and governments respond to the challenge of sustainable forest management from their respective contexts.

Summaries of each publication are attached below.

(Documents open in new windows.)

Notes
*For the English version of the Philippine Case Study, please contact AFN or La Solidaridad Bookshop
**To order this publication, please contact the Ateneo de Manila University Press, http://www.ateneopress.org/detail socsi.asp?ID=32

La Solidaridad Bookshop
531 Padre Faura St., Ermita, Manila, Philippines
Telephone: 632-523-0870
http://www.veranda.com.ph/articles_solidaridad.htm

CAMBODIA: FLOOD FORESTS, FISH, AND FISHING VILLAGES

Flood Forests, Fish and Fishing Villages focused on Cambodia, a country that hosts the Tonle Sap (Great Lake) and the Mekong River, two of the most important hydrological systems in the world. During the wet season, the Great Lake expands to as high as 5 times its dry season size with additional water coming from the Mekong River on it reverses its flow. The Great Lake becomes an immense fish hatchery providing livelihood to the fishing villages around it. The interlocking importance of the two water systems warrant an integral approach of sustainable management of upland watersheds, surrounding forests in the Tonle Sap and dam constructions in countries along the Mekong.

While the efforts in sustainable forest and fishery management of Kompong Phluk village in Cambodia, the setting of the study, cannot stabilize the environmental landscape of the Great Lake alone, the Khmer community is taking important steps. The study examines how the village, with assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), developed an organization to manage their resources, formulated village rules and regulations drawing from its 50-year management practice, and engaged with government in seeking approval of their organization culminating in designing a comprehensive resource management plan. It is interesting to know how village initiatives are able to integrate indigenous forest management systems by building on the emerging formal national policy where vast commercial fishing grounds were transferred to community management.

There is indeed much to learn from Kompong Phluk village as it struggles to develop and operationalize their government-approved management plan. Other fishing communities around Tonle Sap can learn from the experience of conducting stakeholder meetings, participatory diagnostic assessments, analyses workshops, boundary demarcation, formulation of policies and plans, monitoring and evaluation.

INDONESIA: COMMUNITIES TRANSFORMING FORESTLANDS

Communities Transforming Forestlands shows how communities, government and other interest groups have collaborated to transform the country's environment scenario.

Through reformasi (reforms), the management of forestlands under state control for over 50 years was decentralized to district governments in 1999. While other districts acted against the interest of forest sustainability, some districts enacted policies to aid the transition and stabilize the environment.

Many communities in Wonosobo district, Java where the case study is situated, took the transition in forest management as a chance for a socially-inclusive system. In Java, the largest populated island and also the longest to be subjected to scientific-based plantation management, communities were transforming degraded state plantations into agroforestry systems hoping to benefit from timber harvest.

Reformation facilitated multi-stakeholder approaches in managing the various interests over forestlands. The Indonesian Communication Forum on Community Forestry (FKKM) was a key actor in bringing together these different and often conflicting interests and placing the plight of otherwise powerless forest farmers in emerging policies and programs in Java.

Communities Transforming Forestlands chronicles the challenges facing local people and the environment in the decentralization process. It describes the transformation communities have carried out on the land, the potentials of emerging social mechanisms, and the challenges confronting negotiated agreements towards an equitable and ecologically sound forest management.

PHILIPPINES: COMMUNITIES IN WATERSHED GOVERNANCE

The Philippines is one of the first countries in Asia to formulate a national forest management framework devolving significant authority over natural resources to communities and local government units. Municipal governments have started to enact ordinances and develop land use plans, to protect and manage local resources. After many years of policy implementation, the stage is set to revisit the communities involved in this resource management transition.

Communities in Watershed Governance looks at the Philippine experience of upland and coastal communities in the Carood and Maasin watersheds. The study illustrates how meaningful interactions between concerned communities and local government can foster a concerted effort in managing watershed and stabilizing terrestrial and aquatic resource use and protection. While identifying difficulties in implementing policies to fit the particular biophysical landscape of the Visayas islands, the study indicates that there are positive changes in the community's understanding of its role in managing resources. This changing understanding has enabled communities to take action and engage local governments in pooling and managing their resources to reverse the decline of the watersheds.

Communities in Watershed Governance demonstrates that while policy frameworks and laws are present, implementation must be adopted to suit the situation of communities for it to substantially effect change in people's lives. The study emphasizes the crucial role that local stakeholders play in making community based forest management take root in the ground.

THAILAND: COMMUNITIES FOR WATERSHED PROTECTION

Communities for Watershed Protection describes an attempt to develop a watershed management network among several community-managed catchments within a larger watershed. In sharing the experience of three communities coming from different cultural traditions, the authors hope to offer an approach in solving conflicts over resource use in upper tributary watersheds throughout the northern part of Thailand.

This case study examines village forest management practices among highland, upland, and lowland communities in Mae Khan Watershed in Chiang Mai involving the Hmong, Karen, and Khon Muang ethnic groups of northern Thailand. This cultural interplay within a watershed context provides insight into how local government can integrate different indigenous traditions of management into emerging natural resource planning strategies for watershed management. The Thai Working Group assisted in building capacities of local administration to better equip them in community facilitation and natural resources planning, and in the process documented the experience so that it may be shared with other areas faced with similar circumstances.

VIET NAM: THE RETURN OF LIMESTONE FORESTS

Return of the Limestone Forests is set in Cao Bang Province with amazing carbonate karst towers dotting the landscape. Limestone forests in northern Viet Nam are valued by communities not only for its beauty but also for its water-regulating capacity as it empties into their rice paddies. When the Vietnamese government started to explore other options for forest management beyond state forestry, Cao Bang communes have taken the opportunity to link their village forest systems into formal government policies.

The case study describes how village groups managing their forests are coming together to form a network and create formal linkages with district and provincial government. It shows how these villages and their indigenous forest management systems are slowly gaining legitimacy. Their efforts are supported by a national working group on community forestry who has made a number of policy and procedural recommendations to develop collaborative frameworks. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development facilitates the move. The Forest Inventory and Planning Institute (FIPI) is assisting the integration of village systems into district and provincial forest management systems and is documenting the networking process between community leaders and government officials.

Return of the Limestone Forests illustrates how communities relating to pinnacle and tower karst limestone environments that are often unsuitable for agriculture like those in Northeastern Viet Nam can collaborate with local governments towards forging a more socially-inclusive forest management system.

COMMUNITIES AND FOREST STEWARDSHIP:
REGIONAL TRANSITIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
(SYNTHESIS REPORT)

Over the last three years, the Asia Forest Network made an attempt to examine the various facets of community forest management (CFM) in five countries in Southeast Asia (SEA): Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam. A gathering of around 50 individuals, from policy makers to field practitioners bound together by their commitment to restore Asia's forests, discussed and reflected on themes covering transitional experiences in CFM policies, practices, prospects and partnerships in the region. The central themes and insights are captured in a regional synthesis report of CFM trends in Southeast Asia.

The synthesis opens with a general history of forest management and dependent communities to provide a context of sector reform. It then moves on to review the emerging formal legal frameworks and strategies and the formulation process of CFM as it unfolds in the five countries with analyses on their possibilities and limitations. Central to the document is the description of the dynamic experience of community forest management on the ground trying to detail patterns of implementation and contexts of application. As it contemplates the future prospects for CFM in the region, the paper identifies forces that support and constrain processes. It ends with a reflection of the transition process and experiences of CFM in the region.

Twenty years ago, government and academic professionals in Asia forwarded a vision that only through convergence of state and local systems of management could stability re-emerge. The regional synthesis tells us how this convergence process, this quiet revolution, has progressed over the years and how forest-dependent communities, the forest keepers, are being affected by this. The synthesis report traces the evolution of emerging policy frameworks that enable communities to formally engage with government as co-managers of state forests. It further examines the laws and regulations pushing decentralized governance and devolution of local resource management tasks to elected officials and explores the ways these laws, policies and programs have affected the lives of forest dependent communities.

The scenario painted by this regional synthesis is not one that calls the bands to play and sound the trumpet. A lot has to happen still in the area of cultural regeneration, reversals of learning for stakeholders, capacity of communities and availability of resources with which to carry this process through. The synthesis does not guarantee that community forest management is the answer to questions on sustainability. However, it asserts that authority and accountability must be re-established proximate to the resources to ensure stability and equity. The synthesis reports with conviction that while community forest management does not represent the easiest path to sustainable use, it may offer the best prospect for success.