Insight: Notes from the Field

New publication to give practitioners a forum for sharing field level experiences

RECOFTC is launching a new publication, “Insight: Notes from the Field”, with the aim of creating a forum for practitioners to share field level cases and lessons in Community Forestry (CF) and Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM).

Last year RECOFTC commissioned a review to assess information needs to support CF and CBNRM in the Asia-Pacific region. According to a survey, many respondents felt that their needs for information were not adequately met from existing sources. It was also found that many publications with a wide reach into CBNRM interest groups have disappeared in recent years, such as the Forest Trees and People Newsletter and the field reports from the Rural Development Forestry Network, among others. Through our network with CF and CBNRM practitioners, we have come to understand that many field level practitioners feel they have insufficient opportunities to share knowledge and experiences with other practitioners.

As a response to this need, RECOFTC is now launching our first issue of Insight: Notes from the Field, a publication with a selection of practitioners’ papers on CF and CBNRM in the region. The publication aims to create a forum for practitioners to share field level cases from work to support communities and other local stakeholders to manage natural resources and to improve their rural livelihoods.

RECOFTC believes that field level practitioners play a key role in shaping the outcomes of CF and CBNRM. With a direct connection to the people who manage and depend on natural resources, field practitioners form a crucial link between local communities and other levels of society by providing support to local actors and at the same time relaying information on their community realities.

In the first issue of Insight, you can read inspirational stories on Community Forestry in Thailand, development of Village Forest Councils in India, experiences on Public Hearing and Public Auditing in community user groups in Nepal, and how to improve buffer zone co-management in protected areas of Vietnam. This first issue focuses on the Asia region, but we are considering broadening the publication to have a more global scope. We are also considering focusing each issue on different themes.

We highly appreciate your feed-back on the idea of continuing Insight, as well as comments or suggestions for future issues. Please send your feedback to Mikaela Rosander, Program Officer at the Regional Analysis and Representation Program, RECOFTC, email: mikaela(at)recoftc.org.

To read the first issue, please click here.