CIFOR recently launched an electronic database that gathers bibliographic information about community forest management (CFM) in tropical Latin America.
Available in Spanish, the database provides 428 records of books, articles, laws and other documents that address a range of CFM experiences, concepts and outcomes. CIFOR believes the tool will help foresters conduct or support CFM as well as provide very useful information for people dealing with forestry issues.
The database is a major component in a book to be published later this year that brings together a large volume of current CFM knowledge. Author of the book Cesar Sabogal, has pursued the book with passion, ever since he became aware of the lack of available CFM source material.
Some CFM experiences in Latin America are decades old and have generated many lessons. However, little effort has been made to gather and categorize these experiences in a way that allows critical reflection about its positive and negative aspects.
The book will fill an important gap in forestry knowledge gap that has hindered CFM's development in neighboring countries. Most of the information available in the database refers to countries of the low tropics, such as Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and Costa Rica, excluding countries of the extreme South, the higher zones of the Andes, and the North of Mexico.
The database was developed in Microsoft Access and Visual Basic, offering users the possibility of updating, adding or removing new records. Each database entry includes the publication or document's bibliographic details, abstract, conclusions, lessons learned and the publisher's contact details.
The database can be searched using key words or according to sub-regions, tools, concepts, capacity building, species, products and land use.
To produce the database, CIFOR collaborated with and received support from the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) and the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon).
Both institutions helped CIFOR to identify and gather publications and documents regarding the Brazilian Amazon and countries of the Andes-Amazônia sub-region. CS, RS
The CFM database can be downloaded at www.cifor.cgiar.org/Publications/