4 Issues Organizations Have to Face before Starting Community Forestry Projects – Some Asian and Latin American countries have felt the benefits of community forestry, yet the West and Central Africa regions are not. Indeed, it becomes the challenge of community forestry. Learn some of the challenges so you can find the best solution and start this project.

4 Issues Organizations Have to Face before Starting Community Forestry Projects

Lack of Community Awareness about Community Forestry 

Some communities often don’t understand the points and what they do while doing this project. As a result, they often reject this idea no matter how hard organizations try to explain it. Instead of forcing them to start the project, you should educate them.

They have to understand first the meaning of community forestry, the purposes, benefits, and things that the communities will do. The more they understand the points, the easier for you to ask them to do this project.

Communities Don’t Get the Right to Manage Their Land 

It is one of the serious challenges while starting community forestry. The truth is that communities need to get their rights to manage their lands in this project. It ensures them that there will be no legal actions while doing something in the forest.

Indeed, they can’t take the forest resources as they want because it is not their land. It disturbs many things, such as their heritage and culture. At the same time, other parties keep exploiting the forests and the environment.

Industrial Production Models 

The industrial production models are one of the biggest challenges to starting community forestry. These models often exploit forest resources. Some companies even deforest the forests to fill the demands and earn more money.

It is also the reason why the local communities should have a legal right against their forests or lands. Passing through the restricted areas is considered as breaking the law. This issue demotivated the local communities to start forestry projects.

Unclear Legal Framework 

Some countries have to deal with the unclear legal framework to start a forestry program. In this case, you should show that the program helps to set up a suitable legal framework. It includes the way local producers’ access and manage forests and also interact with markets.

Alternatively, communities and smallholders should have access to forests through individual or collective ownership. It can be coming from the temporary use rights. Guatemala and Bolivia are two countries that successfully solve this legal framework issue by applying temporary use rights.

The truth is that there are so many challenges to starting community forestry. It needs participation from all parties to get a maximum benefit. Organizations that focus on forestry programs should educate people about why they need to do forestry programs.

At the same time, organizations also have to help local communities to get legal rights to manage and use their lands. Community forestry is not about destroying the industry but finding the best solutions or alternatives to save the forests and environment from exploitation and deforestation. Indeed, this program will reduce a variety of negative impacts on never-ending forest exploitation, such as disasters, low oxygen quality, global warming, and many more. We are waiting and please if you want to contact us