In the Hands of Local Communities: Annual Report 2014-2015

In 2014-15, RECOFTC demonstrated how community forestry in the Asia-Pacific region has great potential to be a pioneer in the drive to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Overall, RECOFTC’s work continues to contribute to an increase in community forests. As of September 2015, 35,000 CF groups have been formalized in the region with over 13 million hectares of forested landscape managed by local communities and indigenous people. The growth of CF in Cambodia demonstrates RECOFTC’s impact—in 2007, when RECOFTC first established a presence in the country, not a single CF was formalized; now there are 291 CFs benefitting more than 70,000 local households and managing 258 thousand hectares of forest. Out of these, 41 CFs have developed sustainable business plans with the direct help of RECOFTC to bring poor and marginalized beneficiaries out of subsistence level income using forest resources.

As governments across the region consider how they will achieve the SDGs, we hope the many successes in this report highlight the importance of doing so in a participatory and inclusive manner - two of the fundamentals of community forestry.