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Improving Human Well-being through Forests
Intermediate Goal
To improve human well-being through enhancing local forest-based practices, promoting small-holder involvement in industrial forestry, and increasing the forestry content of poverty alleviation policies, strategies and programmes
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| Geographic Focus: Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, South Africa, Tanzania, Vietnam, Zambia | |
Sub Themes:
1. Forest Biodiversity, Local Practices, Human Livelihoods and Health
The Poverty and Environment Network (PEN) of 15-25 PhD students and young researchers is being established to investigate at a number of locations the circumstances and relative contributions of forests and forest products to subsistence livelihoods and the local economies of people dependent on forests, as well as how these functions can be enhanced and protected. Household-level studies in Malinau (Indonesia), and as part of the dry forest project in Africa (Burkina, Zambia, Tanzania), will provide complementary data. A series of studies are being undertaken, mainly in Brazil, South Africa and Cameroon, but also in the numerous countries covered by CIFOR's global comparison of forest products, on the use and marketing of different species. The results of research on markets for forest products in the moist forests of Central Africa will be disseminated to key stakeholders with the aim of improving the marketing strategies and income of local communities. A project on strengthening the capacity of civil society to improve poor people's access to forest-based benefits will be implemented in India, China and Nepal,
site: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/forestlink
Key activities:
2. Forest Industry and Local Livelihood
Developing countries produce billions of dollars worth of timber and processed wood products every year, though only a small portion of this currently benefits poor households and small-scale producers. Research activities under Forest Industry and Local Livelihoods focussing in the areas in order to have a better understanding of forest industry roles in influencing outcomes for forests and people, and how best to promote small-scale producers and community involvement in the industrial forestry sector. (Further information, please contact: Dede Rohadi at d.rohadi@cgiar.org). more
3. Poverty Alleviation Policies, Strategies and Programmes
The work will be focused on areas where the forest-dependent poor are concentrated - South Asia, China, the Mekong basin, and dryland Africa. CIFOR will carry out work on poverty alleviation in the upland communities of the Mekong Region (Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR), concentrating on improved industrial and community forestry. We will assist in developing research and monitoring tools for understanding the contribution of forest resources to poverty alleviation in forest fringe areas in India. The dry forest project will engage with the NEPAD secretariat in South Africa and with the PRSP process in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa to identify pathways to poverty alleviation within the region.
Key activities:
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