Answer:

Overview

1.1. Background, objectives, and approach

1.1.1. Background

In its first phase, from fiscal years 1998 to 2000, the IGES Forest Conservation Project aimed to identify

principles or elements of sustainable forest management, based on experiences in the Asia-Pacific region, which

account for an important portion of the strategy for forest conservation. The research was carried out by four

interrelated sub-teams: (1) the sub-team on structural analysis of forest destruction (ST sub-team), to provide

basic information to other sub-teams; (2) the sub-team on participatory forest management policy (PM sub-team),

to make recommendations covering local and national levels; (3) the sub-team on timber trade policy (TT sub-

team), to make recommendations covering national and international levels; and (4) the sub-team on

legal/administrative measures for forest conservation (LA sub-team), to elaborate principles/elements for

sustainable forest management as a final outcome of the project. Target countries were Indonesia, Thailand, the

Philippines, Lao P.D.R., Vietnam, China, Russia, and other Asia-Pacific countries.

The ST sub-team reconfirmed such leading root causes of forest destruction as “an insufficient base of local

participation and community rights” and the “impacts of market forces,” as well as a “forest development

paradigm with an industrial emphasis” and “economic/political challenges.” The PM sub-team analysed and

compared existing participatory forest management systems in Southeast Asian countries, aiming to clarify their

characteristics, and categorised them into several types based on their main actors, legal status of forest land, and

activities. Then the sub-team made policy recommendations through an examination of internal and external

constraints on participation. The TT sub-team mainly conducted time-series economic analyses (TEA) of the

timber trade in both export and import countries in the Asian region as well as data collection for space

equivalent analysis (SEA) of the timber trade. The LA sub-team focused on international legal measures related

to forest conservation, international processes of policy dialogue on forest issues, and domestic

legal/administrative measures related to participatory forest management. The sub-team elaborated the principles

and elements for sustainable forest management in cooperation with the other sub-teams.

In its first phase, the project successfully constructed a valuable network with researchers, non-governmental

organisations (NGOs), local PEOPLE, and GOVERNMENT officials in the Asia-Pacific region. These interpersonal

relations with project members were utilised and evolved into inter-organisational relations with IGES in the

second phase.

As a logical consequence of the fact that the major outcome of the project was a set of principles or elements of

sustainable forest management, the main target groups in the first phase were governmental authorities. However,

although we invited governmental officials to a series of regional workshops held in Jakarta, Vientiane, and

Khabarovsk to discuss and examine our draft strategies, including policy recommendations, it did not seem to be

enough for the project to have an influence on the national forest policies of each country.

Regarding the broad coverage of the project plan in the first phase, the IGES Boards of Directors and Trustees,

the members of Research Advisory Committee (RAC), and outside experts suggested that the FC Project shouldmit its theme to the participation of local people, focus on a few countries, and integrate the approaches in the

second phase (FY2001–2003).

1.1.2. Objectives

The goal of the Forest Conservation Project was to develop strategies for forest conservation and sustainable

forest management. Although many approaches should be taken into consideration to achieve the goal, we aimed

to develop the following guidelines and recommendations to PROMOTE the participation of local people in forest

management, an approach expected to achieve both poverty alleviation and sustainable forest management at the

same time:

• Village action guidelines (VAG) for villagers and other stakeholders at the village level.

• Local policy guidelines (LPG) for local (provincial or district) governments and other stakeholders at the

local level.

• National policy recommendations (NPR) to ensure the effective application of international treaties on

local participation in forest management at the national level. Local government and stakeholders at

local and national levels can make full use of these recommendations in ORDER to promote the process of

decentralisation.