Training and Capacity Building of Forest Sector Grassroots Stakeholders for
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Asia
Issue 8: December 2015
Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+
Welcome to the Gras
s
roots REDD+
Newsletter
HIGHLIGHTs
•
Key
concerns
and
issues
of
grassroots
stakeholders
on
REDD+
and
climate
change
are
documented
and
communicated
through
several
consultation workshops in all countries.
•
Workshops
at
national
levels
are
organized
to
share
lessons
and
feedback from grassroots facilitators on REDD+ capacity development.
REDD+
Newsletter
INDoNEsIa:
With regards to the project’s impact, documentation was carried out in two locations: the Berau district in East Kalimantan and the Jember district in East Java.
In Berau, the impact documentation focused on the effectiveness of YAKOBI as REDD+ capacity development organization. The documentation process focused on interviewing representatives of the various target groups – women, religious leaders and elementary school teachers – about their experiences of participating in the project’s capacity development activities. Project staff also interviewed key YAKOBI staff, who reported that the project approach helped them in designing and delivering the REDD+ capacity development activities.
2
During the last few months, the Grassroots REDD+ project activities in Indonesia focused on reflecting upon the key lessons learned during capacity development activities conducted by the project’s partner organizations and grassroots facilitators and on documenting the project’s impacts.
Recently, the project’s partners organized two reflection workshops. One, organized by YAKOBI, the project’s partner in East Kalimantan, focused on the organization’s experiences engaging with religious leaders to communicate the key messages of REDD+ and climate change. The second was organized by the grassroots project team in Indonesia, bringing 20 grassroots facilitators together to reflect, particularly on learning from their experiences in delivering capacity development activities. These events also focused on documenting key issues and challenges faced by grassroots stakeholders related with delivering capacity development activities on REDD+ and sustainable forest management. Such reflection and sharing workshops also led to the creation of other similar initiatives, integrating community welfare and livelihoods improvements in the capacity development programs and replicating learning in different areas with support from proper awareness raising communication tools. With regards to the project’s impact, documentation was carried out in two locations: the Berau district in East Kalimantan and the Jember district in East Java.
In Berau, the impact documentation focused on the effectiveness of YAKOBI as REDD+ capacity development organization. The documentation process focused on interviewing representatives of the various target groups – women, religious leaders and elementary school teachers – about their experiences of participating in the project’s capacity development activities. Project staff also interviewed key YAKOBI staff, who reported that the project approach helped them in designing and delivering the REDD+ capacity development activities.
YAKOBI staff and women facilitators in the Biduk-Biduk com-munity of Berau district, East Kalimantan province, who were interviewed for the project’s “story of change.”
Setting up video interview for the project’s “story of change” with an elementary teacher school teacher trained by YAKOBI in Berau district, East Kalimantan province.
Woman grassroots facilitator sharing her experiences imple-menting the project’s REDD+ capacity development pro-gram during a national sharing
and relection workshop in
Lao PDR:
Following a national level training of trainers (ToT) program on gender mainstreaming in sustainable forest management conducted by the Grassroots REDD+ project team in Lao, six of the ToT participants were selected to form a team of national facilitators consisting of the members of Women’s Advancement Committee and Laos Women Union under the Department of Forests (DoF). The selected ToT participants helped delivering a three-day sub-national level ToT, which was attended by 30 participants from three target provinces: Saravan, Huaphan and Luang Prabang. These participants had attended an earlier training on climate change and REDD+ social safeguards in 2014 under the Grassroots REDD+ project. From this sub-national ToT, 3-4 participants were selected as sub-national facilitators who would be responsible for delivering training on climate change and sustainable forest management at the community/grassroots level together with the national facilitator team of the grassroots project, following cascading approach.
Another important activity that was accomplished by the Grassroots REDD+ project team in Lao PDR was to organize a two-day national workshop in Vientiane in preparation for the upcoming 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris. The workshop, which had a key focus on equity in forests and climate change, was organized jointly with the Department of Forest Resource Management (DFRM), the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment (MoNRE) and in close collaboration with the Department of Forestry (DoF) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF). A total of 24 delegates from agencies under MoNRE and MAF, including REDD+ taskforce members, attended this two-day event. The main objective of the workshop was to raise the awareness of the key national stakeholders on climate change and equity ahead of the upcoming COP21. The outputs from this workshop contributed to the development of an issue paper on equity in climate change that is scheduled to be released during COP21 this month.
Group discussion during the village level consultation meeting in ThaPhaKine village, Pauk Khaung township, Pyay district, Bago region, during July 2015, conducted by Friends of Wildlife (FoW).
MyaNMaR:
After completing training programs for REDD+ at grassroots, sub-national and national levels, the Grassroots REDD+ project team in Myanmar organized a series of consultation meetings with grassroots stakeholders in three project sites: Pyarpon-Bogalay, Pyay-Pauk Khaung and Layshe townships to document the key concerns and issues of the stakeholders. The results of the consultations are listed in the following table:
Concerns and issues
Pyar-Illegal logging, weak law enforcement and lack of coordination
be-tween communities and government agencies at the local level. × × Lack of alternative fuel supply to minimize forest degradation and
deforestation caused by firewood collection. × × Technical and financial support needed to develop and support
alter-native livelihood opportunities for community forest user group and to gradually replace shifting cultivation by terrace farming.
× ×
Support needed for agro-forestry practices to reduce pressure on
forest resources. ×
Lack of the forest land for establishing community forest. ×
Lack of knowledge on forest laws and forest conservation practices. × ×
Lack of adequate knowledge of REDD+. ×
Uncertainty of carbon market at the national and international levels. ×
Infrastructure development, such as road construction from Manipur in India to Lay-Shi township in Myanmar, may lead to loss of natural forests.
×
Customary rights on land tenure and rights on traditional forest management need to be considered in REDD+ implementation by the relevant agencies and project proponents.
×
Benefit-sharing and equity are critical at the community level, particularly because the role of women in forest management and decision-making is yet to be recognized as essential to sustainable forest management.
×
In view of the priorities for daily livelihoods, convincing communities
for their participation in REDD+ implementation is a challenge. × Poor capacity of women to effectively participate in forest
manage-ment practices. ×
VIET NaM:
During July, the Grassroots REDD+ project team in Viet Nam conducted a series of 13 refresher and consultation workshops at the community level in all four target provinces, engaging nearly 400 participating grassroots stakeholders to identify and document concerns and aspirations related to REDD+. Of the 13 events, two were organized both in Ha Tinh and Ca Mau provinces, three in Lam Dong and six in Bac Kan. The discussions resulting from these workshops were then synthesized and the results were shared in six district-level round table meetings, which were organized during August and September. A total of 137 local government officials with an influence on policymaking attended the meetings, which also served as a platform to update the participants on the Grassroots REDD+ project’s achievements, lessons learnt and a range of communication tools developed by the project.
NEPaL:
In Nepal, the Grassroots REDD+ project team’s activities were affected by the rainy season and also to some extent by the tumultuous political situation between July and September. The project’s activities picked up again in October 2015, which will be reported in the next newsletter. The focus of the project’s activities is on continuing with a series of grassroots level consultations on sustainable forest management, climate change and REDD+ and to document key issues and concerns of grassroots stakeholders and share them with policymakers. The aim of the consultation workshops is to engage local resource persons who have been trained under the Grassroots REDD+ project.
4
Energizing exercise during a refresher consultation workshop in Lang Ngam commune, Ngan Son district, Bac Kan province.
Discussing REDD+ social safeguards during a refresher consultation workshop in Lang Ngam commune, Cho Don district, Bac Kan province.
In August, a Grassroots REDD+ project representative was invited to share experiences of the project’s citizen journalism training approach during a side event at the IUCN Asia Regional Conservation Forum 2015 held in Bangkok, Thailand, titled, “Citizen journalism: Empowering local people to share voices through SMS”. Specifically, the project representative presented the TempoSMS mechanism – an SMS service that allows local people to text issues they encounter to the TempoSMS website – introduced to the citizen journalists during a training delivered by the Grassroots project to communicate local issues related to natural resource management to the wider public through
Cascading up grassroots concerns and issues
The cascading approach has been a core method applied by the Grassroots REDD+ project for developing the capacities of grassroots stakeholders by bringing their voices from the grassroots level up to the national, regional and international levels, hence, the term, “cascading up.” In-country strategies, consultation and sharing workshops have been an essential part of the cascading approach for sharing grassroots concerns and issues with decision- and policy-makers. In the process of bringing grassroots voices to the regional and international levels, the project has also supported eight grassroots facilitators from five project countries to share their concerns and issues at the “Asia Regional Workshop on Community Forest Rights and Strengthening Forest Associations”1, “Investing in local communities for sustainable
forests: The Asia and the Pacific pre-World Forestry Congress (WFC) regional meeting on people and forests”2 and the XIV
World Forestry Congress 2015. Grassroots facilitators related their experiences attending these key events with the project staff, which are shared below:
Mr. Ganesk Karki, of FECOFUN, Nepal: “Attending the ‘Asia Regional Workshop on Community Forest Rights and Strengthening Forest Associations,’ I gained an understanding of different experiences of community management and its ability for livelihood improvement in Asia. I was also able to learn about the good practices of land ownership rights of community forests in the Philippines. I aim to use all of these lessons to raise awareness of communities, enhance my institution’s structure and to coordinate among networks for advocating and ensuring community rights in community forestry.”
Mr. Muhammad Jamil, representative of a village forest in Labbo Village, South Sulawesi province, Indonesia: “During the ‘Asia Regional Workshop on Community Forest Rights and Strengthening Forest Associations,’ I shared the status of the community forest network in my province and village. The event helped me understand how to analyze the weaknesses and strengths of community forest networks and better understand the concept of community forest networks to apply in my own context.”
Mr. Le Van Dinh, Ha Tinh Center for Community Development (HCCD), Viet Nam: “While helping to organize RECOFTC’s pre-WFC regional meeting, I learned about the participatory approach. I am excited to apply this method in organizing further grassroots consultation workshops and will also share it with partner organizations. And I will convey the four key priorities3
that could contribute to successful REDD+ implementation.”
Ms. Rosdiana, a local facilitator and a member of Pemberdayaan dan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (PKK), a women’s group in Indonesia: “I shared the perspectives of different forests in Berau, Indonesia and the participatory process used in forest management in my area. I learned about facilitation skills and appropriate mechanisms for supporting for my community and village. I intend to apply and replicate the facilitation skills learned from the meeting into awareness raising activities on sustainable forest management in my community.”
Ms. Theya Chaw, Myanmar: a community forest member and local facilitator: “During the pre-WFC regional meeting and the XIV World Forestry Congress, I shared the concerns of local villagers about the impacts of global warming and climate change. I also stressed the need of providing adequate support for local people for addressing the impacts of climate change and improving forest-based livelihoods. I learned about sustainable forest management and community forestry practices that I will disseminate to local communities when conducting awareness-raising events and encouraging local people to manage forests sustainably.”
Ms. Viengphet Phengmany, Participatory Development Education Training Center, Lao PDR: “During the pre-WFC regional meeting, I shared my experiences of developing the capacities of community members on climate change and REDD+. I also emphasized that community empowerment is fundamental for creating a strong foundation for REDD+. Many local people live close to or in forests and they must therefore have a better understanding about the importance of forests to be in a better position to be effective sustainable forest managers. I would like to apply the methods related in pre-WFC regional meeting to further community the national media outlet, Tempo.
This newsletter is published by:
Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+ in Asia RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests P.O. Box 1111, Kasetsart Post Office
Bangkok 10903, Thailand REDDgrassroots@recoftc.org
http://www.recoftc.org/project/grassroots-capacity-building-redd
Copyright © 2015 RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests gives permission to make digital or hard copies of portions or all of this work for educational or non-commercial purposes without fee or prior written consent provided the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that the source is fully acknowledged. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission. Send written requests for republication to RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests, P.O. Box 1111, Kasetsart Post Office, Bangkok 10903, Thailand. Please email your queries to REDDgrassroots@recoftc.org
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect those of RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests and Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). We disclaim any errors or omissions in the translation of this document from the original version in English into other languages.
Issue 8: December 2015
• Posters on “Mainstreaming Gender in Sustainable Forest Management” in Lao language
A set of posters has been developed in Lao language for raising the awareness and developing a basic understanding of grassroots stakeholders on gender issues in climate change and sustainable forest management. The posters will be distributed as support material to local facilitators of the Grassroots REDD+ project for raising awareness on gender mainstreaming among grassroots stakeholders. The posters will also be made available to other organizations working on gender and natural resource management in Lao PDR. The poster is available athttp://www.recoftc.org/project/grassroots-capacity-building-redd/posters-infographics/posters-grassroots-communities-lao-pdr-gender-and-climate-change
• FPIC in REDD+ handbook in Bahasa Indonesia language
