1 Experiences from Project "Community Empowerment for Forest Management (CEFM)" By Nguyen Van Man Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry 1. Introduction of the Project Project Title : Community Empowerment for Forest Management - CEFM Objective: Poor and forest-dependent communities in two communes in Cho Don District, Bac Kan Province are empowered to sustainable manage allocated forests and equitably share costs and benefits Expected outputs of the Project Output 1: Communities in Cho Don District, Bac Kan Province are implementing sustainable participatory forest management Output 2: Local authorities support community participation in forest management planning, protection and land use management. Output 3: A forest forum involving all related stakeholders in Cho Don established, functional, and sustainable and benefiting the poor. Output 4: A forest forum involving all related stakeholders in Cho Don established, functional, sustainable and benefiting the poor. Output 5: Lessons learnt documented and disseminated to other communes, districts of Bac Kan Province and national forestry forums Location: Ban Thi and Xuan Lac Commune, Cho Đon District, Bac Kan Province Duration: 2006 – 2009 2. Target group and forest resources at Project site 2.1. Target group The target groups of the Project mainly are ethnic minority: Mong ethnic 40%, Tay ethnic 24%, Dao ethnic 18%, Kinh ethnic 10%, Nùng ethnic 4% and Hoa ethnic (Chinese) 4%. Among them, Mong people are recently moved from northern border provinces to project site during year 1995 to year 1998 and most of them can not speak Vietnamese. 2.2. Forest resources at project site At the project site exit following forest and forest land types classified by function and by owner: 2 - Production forest and forest land allocated to households: Mainly are forests generated after slash and burn covered by generated trees, with low volume and low economic value. - Production forest and forest land managed by Commune People's Committee: Mainly is bare land after slash and burn, far from villages and is commune grazing area of the villages - Protection forest allocated to households: Mainly are hill mountain forest with tress of low quality, with low or average volume - Protection forest managed by Commune People's Committee: Mainly is rocky mountain forest, far away from villages, with average volume and have some rare tree species, no or very little non-timber forest products 3. Experiences/outputs in forest management 3.1. For protection forest managed by Commune People's Committee CEFM project associated with Local Project 661 to allocate forest to community for protection and management. To do this, firstly CEFM project supported villagers to establish forest management groups and developed the group regulation and action plan, then local authorities approved the groups and group regulation and action plan. It is needed to attract the participation from all households in the village during group establishing and the groups developed the benefit sharing mechanism it shelves. During developing the group action plan need to prioritize the poor households with little forest to participate in forest patrolling. 3.2. For production forest and forest land allocated to households Project supported villagers to develop sustainable forest management plan. To do this, firstly Project conducted the training, and then supported households to develop their sustainable forest management plan. The sustainable forest management plans developed for period of 7 to 10 years, based on the potential of the forest plot, need and capacity of households. Households participating and caring out the sustainable forest management plan are prioritized in seedling support than others. For sharing experiences and supporting each other the group was established. 3.3. Organize the Forest Forum The purpose of the forest forum is to create the environment for villagers, cards, local authorities, stockholders, who interest in sustainable forest management to exchange, share experiences and propose the ideas for developing forest development projects. During the project duration, forum at village level were organized in all villages at project site, two forums at commune level and one forum at district level were organized. The topics of the forums depend on the situation, but they are problems concerned by communities and villagers. 3.4. Community capacity building in forest management For community capacity building in forest management, Project focused on following areas: ¾ Strengthening awareness on forest management focused on propaganda of the roles and functions of the forest, the right and responsibilities of the forest 3 owner, the responsibilities of the authorities at all level on forest and forest land. ¾ Establishing community organizations in forest management focused on establishing forest management groups, sharing experience/interest groups, and supported groups to develop the group regulation and action plan ¾ Improving technical knowledge on forest management focused on topics such as planting and tending forest technique, forest patrolling skills, preventing and fighting forest fire, developing household sustainable forest management plan; study tour to successful sustainable forest management and development models/projects, procedure and process of the forest planting design, procedure and process of the forest product logging permission, nursery technique. ¾ Besides knowledge related forest management, project also improved related knowledge including agricultural technique such as planting hybrid corn, making green manure, cultivating on slope land, planting sugarcane,…; and improve community development skills such as facilitating skills, group management skills, household economic management skills. 4. Difficulties for community forest development at project site ¾ Potential forest and forest land for community forest at project site mainly are far from villages, located at commune or district border, difficult to patrol, forest on the rocky mountain, no permission for cutting of timber trees, non timber forest product limited, the remainder that is no protection forest is mainly bare land and it is the common grazing areas of the villages, not attract the in of the communities ¾ Almost households at project site were allocated quite big area of forest and forest land varying 1 to 20 hectares, so they not much interested in community forest ¾ Some present regulation not supported for allocation protection forest to community, especially protection forest in the rocky mountain. 5. Experiences ¾ Capacity building for villagers and communities must be associated by capacity building for local authorities ¾ To attract local authorities and organization to support communities in forest protection and management. ¾ Increate the participation of the villagers in sustainable forest management including decision making process through policy advocacy activities ¾ Decrease the pressure on the forest through income generation activities based on forest and other income generation activities ¾ For the successful of the project need to closely associate between project and local authorities, especially need to integrate the project activities in to local social economic development plan and monitor by local authorities ¾ For the susses full of the trainings need to use field school method and use local as interpreter for the village that can not speak Vietnamese 4 ¾ Monitoring and evaluation of activities is needed . Objective: Poor and forest-dependent communities in two communes in Cho Don District, Bac Kan Province are empowered to sustainable manage allocated forests and equitably share costs and benefits. 1: Communities in Cho Don District, Bac Kan Province are implementing sustainable participatory forest management Output 2: Local authorities support community participation in forest management. management planning, protection and land use management. Output 3: A forest forum involving all related stakeholders in Cho Don established, functional, and sustainable and benefiting the poor.