High Powered Global Coalition Aims to Boost Community Forest Rights

WASHINGTON, DC, May 4, 2006 (ENS) - "The world's forest sector is in the midst of the biggest transformation since the colonial era," says Andy White. "We're seeking to encourage and expand the kind of reforms, such as those affecting property rights, that will allow forest communities to progress from barely surviving to thriving."

As president of the Rights and Resources Group (RRG) based in Washington, DC, White is coordinating a new initiative that aims to double the global forest area under community ownership and management by 2015. The coalition takes in forest communities, nongovernmental organizations, a large foundation, government agencies and intergovernmental research groups to empower forest dwellers.

"It is now apparent that forests can play a big part in boosting living standards of the poor, but only if we can overcome the many forces that prevent the rural poor from owning, using and selling their forest products and services," White said on Wednesday, announcing the new Rights and Resources Initiative.

The initiative also seeks to reduce by half the proportion of people in forest areas who live in extreme poverty by 2015, part of the internationally agreed Millenium Development Goal of halving the number of all poverty-stricken people by that date. The eight Goals were drawn from the Millennium Declaration, which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations in 2000.

Community gathers to discuss forest protection Cañas, Costa Rica. (Photo by Raúl Velásquez courtesy FAO)

The Rights and Resources Initiative is based on the idea that the solution to this widespread poverty is to empower forest communities with clear rights to own and use forest resources.

"Most of the world's tropical forests are government owned and managed, despite legitimate local claims to the forest and the limited ability of governments to protect these vast resources," said David Kaimowitz, director-general of the Center for International Forestry Research, CIFOR, based in Indonesia, a founding partner of the new Initiative.

"Commercial use is often restricted to a few privileged players - too often logging companies that harvest the forests unsustainably - with little payback to rural communities for schools, roads, and services that might spur economic growth," Kaimowitz said.

Founding partners of the Rights and Resources Initiative include the Coordinating Association of Indigenous and Community Agroforestry in Central America; Forest Trends of Washington, DC; the Bangkok-based Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific; the Foundation for People and Community Development of Papua New Guinea; InterCooperation, Switzerland; the World Agroforestry Center; and the IUCN-World Conservation Union based in Geneva.

The partners say a major transition in forest ownership is taking place throughout the world - rural people are increasingly asserting their rights to control forested areas and governments are beginning to recognize the benefits of local control.

Today, local communities, including indigenous residents, manage at least 370 million hectares of forest, according to the Rights and Resources Initiative, which says that local communities are now protecting more biodiversity in forest areas than is currently conserved in parks and other private or government-protected areas.

"But significant legal and other barriers persist," said Achim Steiner, director-general of IUCN. "This initiative aims to support communities and governments in addressing these barriers on a global scale, building on the momentum that is already underway."

The Rights and Resources Initiative is working with the support and collaboration of the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, the Ford Foundation, Canada's International Development Research Centre, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Collecting firewood in Kyrgyzstan (Photo by Mauricio Rosales courtesy FAO)

But changing the status quo will be a complex process, requiring new policies that define clear local property rights so the forest-dependent poor can participate openly in forest markets and forest conservation.

There is also the need for new legal and regulatory frameworks that govern such things as subsidies and access which now disproportionately benefit large industry, the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) coalition says.

Coalition partners see the need for market reforms that level the playing field, giving smaller operators a fair shot at success

Board member Alberto Chinchilla, head of the Coordinating Association of Indigenous and Community Agroforestry in Central America, believes the situation in many countries is ripe for the kind of assistance RRI can provide.

Members of Chinchilla's group now control some 14 percent of Central America's forests. Their progress has been accelerated by targeted policy and technical guidance, such as management plans that offer locally controlled, sustainable use as an alternative to complete bans on commercial activities.

"What we have seen in Central America is that once local groups get their foot in the door, with the right kind of assistance, they can push it wide open and enter into a new era of using forests to achieve economic independence while preserving the forests for generations to come," Chinchilla said.

In Southeast Asia, communities of farmers conserve large areas of biodiverse secondary forests independently of conservation programs.

Indigenous homes in Chad's Zakouma National Park, 2004. (Photo by Daniel Cornelis courtesy FAO)

Forty million hectares of forest in Mexico, including seven million in well organized community forest enterprises are under community management.

In Central America three million hectares of forest are managed by communities, and RRI notes that some community timber enterprises are investing double the amount for habitat protection as governments in adjacent areas protected by governments.

Other countries in Asia and Latin America are conserving species and habitat while producing marketable and locally consumed forest products - timber, non-timber products, botanicals, fiber products, and organic crops.

Informed by what is happening on the ground, the RRI partners say they work towards advancing tenure, policy and market reforms in developing countries. They will produce and distribute comprehensive data on forest ownership; levels of poverty in forest areas; existing policies, laws and regulations; and key players in the process.

For further information, visit: www.rightsandresources.org.

View the Millenium Development Goals at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/