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Community Forestry International Cambodia

Protecting Forests by Supporting Communities CFI seeks to protect Cambodia's threatened forests and watersheds and address rural poverty by facilitating a national transition to community-based natural resource management. After a decade of commercial timber extraction that rapidly degraded the nation's once rich forests, the Royal Government of Cambodia recently cancelled 4 million hectares of logging concessions and passed a CF Sub-Decree paving the way for a new approach to forest management in Cambodia. A GTZ/RGC report (2002) identified 8 million hectares of land suitable for community forest management, representing much of the nation?s land area. CFI provides a mechanism that assists Cambodia?s civil society to develop the capacity to implement this dramatic reformation of the forestry sector. . Greater Progress Through Partnerships The CFI strategy is two-fold and involves building synergistic linkages between stakeholders through collaborative action, such as participatory CF policy and program development, joint training activities, and network building. CFI also directly strengthens the CF capacity of Cambodian NGOs and communities through small grants and assistance with institutional capacity strengthening and technical issues. NGO partners involved in CFI have experience with a wide range of stakeholder groups including indigenous peoples, primary school teachers and children, Buddhist monks, community leaders, local NGOs, local government officials, policy makers, donors, and the mass media. Similarly, participating organizations have specialized skills in community networking and resource mapping, teacher training and extension materials development, legal and policy analysis, resource rights advocacy, and radio program production. CFI allows participating NGOs in Cambodia to exchange this experience regarding the most effective ways to assist local governments and communities to implement recently approved community-based natural resource management policies. . Due to their differentiated skills and broad coverage of different socio-cultural and environmental contexts across Cambodia, CFI members have greater impact as an alliance of action agencies, than if the partners operated independently. . Helping Communities Know Their Rights CFI provides legal advice on new CBNRM policies to its NGO partners, as well as technical expertise on community mapping and negotiating resource management agreements, and program financing strategies by exposing Cambodian practitioners to experiences from other Asian countries. Finally, CFI liaises with the Community Forestry Office and the Department of Nature Conservation and Protection of the Royal Government of Cambodia to provide input to the development of new national CF laws, policies and programs based on legal expertise, input from civil society partners and direct field experience with communities. In addition, CFI provides guidance to bi-lateral and multi-lateral organizations that are considering investing in the community forestry sector. . CFI Cambodia has a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Forestry Administration and the Ministry of Environment and is officially registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Phnom Penh.

Uploaded on: Mar 2009
File size: 25 MB - Language: English
Keyword(s): Community Based Organizations , Forest Management System , Forestry
Category: Environment

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