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A forum on Community Forests in North Central Region and Northern Mountainous Areas

  • From 23rd December to 24th December 2011, the forum Community Forests in North Central Region and Northern Mountainous Areas was held in the Northeast Vocational College of Technology and Agro-forestry in Huu Lung commune, Lang Son province by the cooperation of the Social Policy Ecology Research Institute (SPERI) and the Culture Identity and Resources Use Management Center (CIRUM). Participants were village leaders, village elders, key farmers and local leaders from Minh Son, Hoa Son, Dong Thang communes, Huu Lung and Dinh Lap districts (Lang Son province); Lung Sui and Simacai communes, Bat Xat district (Lao Cai province); Hanh Dich and Tuong Duong communes, Que Phong district (Nghe An province); Truong Son cooperative (Ha Tinh province).



    The forum was aimed at creating a platform for exchanging knowledge and information about community based management of forest and forest land, increasing the awareness in the community of  forest land right; as well as strengthening the  role of customary law in this field.

    Summaries of current state policies and regulations related to community forests as well as the current situation of empowering local community to manage and use forest land according to the Circular No.07/2001/TTLT-BTNMT&BNN were presented in the forum by consultants of Consultancy on Development (CODE) and SPERI.

    There was an exciting discussion with enthusiastic sharing on community based management of forest by village elders, village leaders and key farmers. The participants, drawing maps of their localities, described the current situation of local forest, the development history of community forests and difficulties and/or challenges that community forests was facing to.

    The forum ended with high consensus on the important role of community forests in daily life of ethnic minority in northern mountainous area. Conclusions of forum showed that the community forests existed and developed long time ago with many different kinds of management, attaching to the evaluation of local ethnic minority community. This type of natural resource management has proved the efficiency in forest protection as well as in sustainable livelihood maintaining for local people. Community based management of forest are now facing some challenges that come from alteration of residents, culture; pressure of economic development or limitation in access to policy of local people. It was agreed by all participants that in the coming time, there is a need to lobby and advocacy in order to make community forests become legal status of forest using and management and keep on improving the community based management of forest of ethnic minority, hence ensuring the efficiency and sustainability of community forests.

    CIRUM