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Supporting Natural Regeneration through Community Management
Welcome to the information site of
the Asia Forest Network
The Asia Forest Network is a non-profit corporation dedicated to supporting the role of communities in protection and sustainable use of Asia's forests. AFN is composed of a coalition of planners, policy makers, government foresters, scientists, researchers, and NGOs. Since its founding in 1987, AFN has become affiliated with over thirty institutions and 700 individuals from Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, Canada, and the U.S.
AFN research topics include natural regeneration, non-timber forest products, conflict resolution, social change, and the institutional arrangements that support participatory community forest management. The Page 2 of 8
lessons stemming from this research are used to inform field implementation procedures, reorient training, and guide policy reform. AFN maintains an extensive publication series that includes Network Research Papers, Working Papers that include individual case studies, a mapping manual, and a website. In addition, AFN is participating in an international regional profile series facilitated by IUCN-the World Conservation Union documenting community involvement in forest management around the world.
AFN's origins are rooted in its members' shared interest in supporting the role of communities in protecting and regenerating natural forests. In the early '80s, a series of grants from the Ford Foundation supported several diagnostic studies to examine forces driving deforestation and exploring community management options in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Southeast Asian researchers identified a common need to decentralize the management of public lands to the community to assure sustainable forest use. They recognized that planners formulating policy reforms would require accurate field information reflecting emerging community concerns and resource systems to guide management transitions. This recognition led to the decision to form a small coalition of committed professionals to collaboratively explore community forestry as a resource management option for Asia.
In January, 1982 the first regional meeting of the Asia Forest Network (AFN) was held in Bangkok at the Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC). Participants from Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and India formed country teams and agreed to undertake comparative studies of natural forest regeneration patterns under community protection. An AFN secretariat was established at the University of Berkeley in California and at the East-West Center in Honolulu. During the following year, AFN staff visited field research sites in all participating countries. Over the next three years, annual meetings were held focusing on comparative learning and research findings across countries. Vietnam, China, and Nepal subsequently joined, contributing their experience to the understanding of indigenous knowledge of local communities regarding forest use practice and regeneration patterns.
The AFN secretariat provides on-going guidance to synthesize learning by identifying patterns that reflect generic resource management problems. Viewing the relationship between the environment and people as a process for practicing and learning effective strategies for sustainability, allows researchers to look for varieties of applicable methods that encourage communities to support and protect local resources. The secretariat approach is through four broad categories:
national, regional, and global dialogues
processes for enhancing tenure security
field research
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Creating new communication channels and opportunities for dialogue Assisting with the establishment and functioning of national working groups Helping government and development agencies to formulate improved forest management policies Designing action research and policy analysis programs Encouraging cross-disciplinary and flexible programs that introduce new practices
Providing training sessions to develop capacity building for communities Building inter-agency cooperation and synergistic CFM strategies Supporting country trials with community dialogues and mapping Assisting communities to resolve conflicts and design sustainable CFM plans
Establishing CFM research sites for assessing how policies and programs effect ethnic minorities and women Identifying "hot spots" of positive development and documenting and communicating these experiences Conducting comparative studies of influence of CFM on different types of degraded forest Organizing seminars and workshops to exchange research information
National & Regional Reports Working Reports of Study Sites Website
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Yunnan Institute of Geography Kunming Institute of Botany Department of Ethnobotany Southwest Forestry College, Forestry Department Yunnan Forestry Department, Silviculture Sectoy
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) Indian institute of Forest Management (IIFM) Institute for Bio-Social Research and Development Society for the Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD) Center for Ecological Studies, Indian Institute of Science Vasundhara World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) Department for International Development, U.K.
Directorate General of Forest Utilization, Ministry of Forests Page 5 of 8
Indonesia Biodiversity Foundation (KEHATI) Mulawarman University Padjadjaran University, Institute of Ecology University of Indonesia, Human Ecology Program USAID, Jakarta
The Institute for Environmental Science and Social Change (ESSC) Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center Foundation for the Philippine Environment USAID, Manila
Chiang Mai University, Social Science Department Kasetsart University, Department of Forest Management Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative Royal forest Department (RFD), Forest Products Research RFD, Community Forestry Branch RFD, Sam Mun Highland Development
Forest Inventory and Planning Institute Da River Watershed Project, Ministry of Forestry Mekong River Commission (MRC) Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)
United States Agency for international Development (USAID) USDA Forestry Service, International Forestry U.S. Forest Service Sustainable Development Institute CIDE/World Resources Institute East-West Center, Program on Environment
The World Bank The Nature Conservancy (TNC) World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) The World Conservation Union (IUCN)
The Asia Forest Network has received financial support from a number of organizations, including:
FORD FOUNDATION JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION Page 6 of 8
ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION USAID, GLOBAL BUREAU WALLACE GENETIC FOUNDATION WORLD WILDLIFE FUND, BIODIVERSITY SUPPORT PROGRAM SWEDISH INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY AGA KHAN FOUNDATION DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUER TECHNISCHE ZUSAMMENARBEIT (GTZ) DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, U.K.
Number 1 - June 1992 Sustaining Southeast Asia's Forests
Number 2 - August 1993 Community Allies: Forest Co-management in Thailand
Number 3 - August 1993 Communities and Forest Management in East Kalimantan
Number 4 - August 1993 Upland Philippine Communities: Guardians of the Final Forest Frontier
Number 5 - August 1994 Proceedings of the Policy Dialogue: Natural Forest Regeneration and Community Management
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Number 6 - August 1995 Transitions in Forest Management: Shifting Community Forestry from Project to Process
Number 7 - March 1996 Grassroots Forest Protection: Eastern Indian Experiences
Number 8 - December 1996 Facilitating Collaborative Planning in Hawai'i's Natural Area Reserves
Number 9 - May 1997 Linking Government with Community Resource Management
Number 10 - August 1998 Steward's of Vietnam's Upland Forests
No. 1 - The Possibilities for Community Forestry in Vietnam by Thomas Sikor and Ulrich Apel
No. 2 - Forest Products, Foreign Markets, and Conflict between Tibetan Mushroom Harvesting Villages in Southwest China by Emily T. Yeh
No. 3 - Local People Managing Local Forests: Behroonguda Shows the Way in Andhra Pradesh, India by Emmanuel D'Silva and B. Nagnath
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Field Methods Manual, Vol. 1: Diagnostic Tools for Supporting Joint Forest Management Systems (1992)
Field Methods Manual, Vol. 2: Community Forest Economy and Use Patterns (1992)
Field Methods Manual, Vol. III: Range Profiling, Boundary Demarcation and Micro Planning (1997)
COMMUNITIES & FOREST MANAGEMENT IN CANADA AND THE U.S.
A Regional Profile of the Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management
COMMUNITIES & FOREST MANAGEMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
A Regional Profile of the Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management