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 CF
is one of the key components of the CBFS
project in ensuring access to land and
forest resources, and securing community
right and privilege for their sustainable
use of natural resources by maintaining
local tradition, wisdom, equity and
indigenous knowledge. CBFS Project has been
supporting to organizations and individuals
for promoting community forestry across the
country. Along with capacity building of NGO
staff and Community leaders through
training, CBFS project provides technical
backstopping as necessary and financial
assistance for project communities for
critical inputs in establishing CF.
 The
community forestry sub-group conducts two
types of trainings, namely, training of
trainers (ToT), and preschool training. ToT
aims at strengthening the capacity of NGO
staff who are the practitioners at field for
implementing community forestry and related
natural resources management. The trainees
are expected to become trainers to transfer
effective facilitation on both technical and
social skills to the community facilitators
and forest user groups through operation of
Preschools and Forest User Field School in
respective geographical areas. In Year 1,
two ToTs were undertaken with participation
of 8 partner organizations (Shalom
Foundation, SWISSAID, KMSS, ECODEV, WCM, MBC,
ADRA, WV) and their four local partner
organizations.
 Preschool
training is purposefully designed for
strengthening the basic knowledge and skills
of community leaders of the forest user
groups in order to initiate the
participatory community process in their
respective communities. The trainings have
focused areas on community forestry
legislation, major contents of CF management
plan, fundamental elements of soil and water
conservation, selection of multi-purpose
tree species for different land use options,
and establishment of forest nursery and
forest operations. Participatory learning
and coaching are integrated to equip the
trainees with related basic knowledge and
skills on CF during the training. In the
four preschools undertaken, 57 community
leaders from 27 beneficiary villages
participated.
 With
the support of CBFS, the implementing
partners, namely, World Concern, Shalom
Foundation, ECODEV, KMSS and SwissAid have
initiated community forestry micro-projects
in Kachin, Chin, and Shan States. After
providing CF ToT and Pre-schools, 19 local
Forest User Groups (FUGs) have been
implementing CF micro-projects. The
participatory development process is
streamlined in the Forest User Field Schools
and thus group discussion, presentation,
consolidation and free discussion are being
held in the monthly sessions. Staff
facilitators are assigned by implementing
partners to facilitate the monthly school
sessions. During the monthly school
sessions, discussions are particularly
focused on current progresses, difficulties,
counter measures, and weaknesses in
establishing multi-purpose tree nurseries,
developing land use maps and management
plans necessary for community forestry
operations. Moreover, owing to technical
difficulties encountered by FUGs, CBFS is
continuously providing technical assistance.
 Experiences
accruing over implementation of CF under
CBFS project will be invaluable not only for
implementing partner organizations and
respected communities but also for
collective advocacy in bringing the way
forward to better policy support and
implementation as far as wider application
of CFI is concerned to realize
“participatory forestry and resource
management”.
Any interested individuals and organizations
are the most welcome to join with us.
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