Poverty forest landscape restoration for asia pacific forests 2016 04 eng

91 Before the policy target was set, the total percentage of PFE to total land area was stagnant at only about 15 percent for more than ten years from 1985 to 1997. It had increased to 24.13 percent by 2008, just ten years after the 1997 Forest Policy. In 2012 it reached 30.9 percent of the total land area. As the long-term targets for RF and PAS have not been fulfilled yet RF-18.5 percent and PAS 5.7 percent by 2012, further increment is still possible. Despite this positive trend, severe forest degradations and setbacks such as land-use changes have been observed even in PFE areas; keeping as much land as possible under PFE with full legal protection would be a significant effort towards restoration and rehabilitation.

5.1.3 Community forestry development

Deforestation and forest degradation became apparent in the late twentieth century. It is agreed that one of the main causes is lack of people’s mainly forest dwellers participation and understanding of forest conservation, management and benefit sharing Ba Kaung 2006. To address this weakness, the CFI was issued by the Forest Department in 1995. The main objectives of the CFI are: •฀ To achieve active participation by the rural population in tree planting on barren lands and to reforest degraded areas; •฀ To meet the basic needs of local communities; and •฀ To support the economic development of the country and regain environmental stability. Many foresters and related professionals welcomed the CFI as a major breakthrough in the Myanmar forestry sector as it establishes the shift from centralized police-style forest management to decentralized community-based forest management. Since then, community forests CFs have been gradually established throughout the country and many international and national NGOs and civil society groups have encouraged and assisted their development. The total CF area reached 33 070 ha in 2005 and rose to 47 204 ha with 29 945 user group members in 2012 MOECAF 2012. CF establishment is significantly higher in areas that are severely degraded and highly vulnerable to climate change, such as the dry zone Sagaing, Mandalay and Magway regions, Shan Plateau and the Ayeyarwaddy Delta. Seventy-five percent of the CFs in the country is established in these regions. The main reasons for establishing CFs in these critical areas is to rehabilitate the degraded environment, to improve local soil and water quality and to supply the basic needs particularly fuelwood and fodder of the rural poor, rather than for commercial exploitation of valuable timber. Establishment of CFs according to the CFI has been seen as a promising way to rehabilitate degraded landscapes and to improve farming through enhanced soil and water quality to meet the basic needs of very poor communities.

5.1.4 Development of the DZGD

The dry zone of Central Myanmar is the most critical region in terms of land degradation caused by continued deforestation Figure 4. All possible measures have been taken to prevent and check environmental deterioration and land degradation since the 1950s. In 1954, a dry zone rehabilitation project was initiated by the Agriculture and Rural Development Corporation ARDC in collaboration with the Forest Department to carry out tree-planting activities in denuded lands. In 1994, the Forest Department implemented a special ‘Greening Project’ for the nine districts of the arid zone of Central Myanmar. During the project period, 7 280 ha of village plantations were planted on denuded lands in the vicinity of the villages for greening purposes and to supply fuelwood, poles and posts. Figure 4. Desert-like formation in the Central dry zone of Myanmar