Summary of progress on climate change mitigation and adaptation

81

5.1 Summary of progress on social forestry

In the three years since the 2010 baseline assessment was published, social forestry programmes have continued to grow in the ASEAN region. The area of land allocated to local people through official community forestry agreements has increased by more than 2 million ha. 71 The most notable expansions have taken place in Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. Despite this expansion and with the exception of Viet Nam, social forestry programmes in ASEAN countries are not progressing quickly enough to meet national targets on community forestry and land allocation. A number of factors impede the more rapid expansion of social forestry. These include inadequate legal frameworks, the inherently complex and time-consuming nature of land allocation Soriaga and Mahanty, 2008, overly restrictive rules, complicated and bureaucratic procedures and limited financial resources and capacities at the local level. Additionally, data on the financial and livelihood benefits that social forestry provides to local communities are ambiguous. Limited profitability of social forestry reduces the incentives for local people to engage. As a result, forest tenure rights in much of the region remain insecure, and governments retain a high degree of control over the majority of forest resources RRI, 2012; RECOFTC, 2013. The rules and procedures for allocating land to local people and establishing community forests need to be streamlined and simplified and administrative blockages removed to reduce the time and costs required to establish social forestry sites. Social forestry is proving to be a successful strategy for rehabilitating degraded forest lands and improving forest quality in the region as well as providing livelihood benefits. For example, in Viet Nam, the allocation of forest lands to local people and their engagement in forest management has had a significantly positive role in reforestation, rehabilitation and forest protection. In Myanmar, community forest management has improved forest conditions and also livelihood benefits Springate-Baginski et al., 2011. Social forestry thus offers the opportunity to respond to climate change in the region, contributing to mitigation efforts in the forest sector, particularly in terms of reducing forest degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks. It may also considerably boost adaptive capacity by contributing to more resilient livelihoods, protecting ecosystem services and expanding social capital at the community level. However, achieving these various objectives and balancing the different needs is not without its challenges, particularly under the harsher climatic conditions of the future.

5.2 Summary of progress on climate change mitigation and adaptation

ASEAN countries have made considerable progress in developing climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and programmes. The majority of countries now have a climate change strategy or action plan in place, along with a high-level body responsible for overseeing and coordinating national responses on climate change. Implementation of these policies and strategies now needs to be scaled up at the national and local levels, along with the integration of climate change considerations into all sectors. Social forestry features strongly in national REDD+ programmes in Cambodia, Philippines and Viet Nam, where forest communities are already participating in REDD+ demonstration projects. Experience from Thailand and Viet Nam is also proving that communities can be effective partners in measuring and monitoring forest carbon stocks on the ground, which will be necessary for implementation of a future international REDD+ scheme. In countries where the rights and responsibilities of local communities in forest management are less well established, it is not clear how they will participate in and benefit from REDD+. More effort is required to clarify tenure rights, carbon ownership and the fair distribution of any benefits to ensure forest-dependent communities can benefit from any future REDD+ scheme. At the present time, social forestry is not a high priority in national or provincial adaptation policies and strategies. Although NAPAs have designated community forestry projects as priority areas for funding, financial support has been slow to materialize. Nonetheless, many success stories are emerging that demonstrate the positive contributions that social forestry can make in increasing the resilience of local people to climate change. These include protecting communities from storm damage, reducing the risk of forest fires, supporting resilient livelihoods and empowering people to develop their own innovative responses to adapt to climate change within their communities. 71 The area of community forestry in Indonesia and Philippines in 2010 is based on figures from 2005, presented in the 2010 FAO forest resources assessment. 82

5.3 Looking to the future