Archive for: Forests


This report focuses on how population impacts many aspects of our lives, including issues as diverse as poverty, health, education, water, and forests. Population matters even more today because historically high numbers of people are intensifying these impacts on our well-being at a time when the demographic picture of the world is becoming increasingly complex. The report includes a glossary of population terms and explains how and why population matters to a variety of issues, including Maternal Health, Infectious Diseases and HIV/AIDS, Education and Labor, Poverty Reduction, Migration and Urbanization, Security, Food Security, Climate Change, Water Resources, Forests, and Biodiversity.

Year: 2011

Source: PAI

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    Across the globe, locally controlled forestry is gaining momentum, increasingly recognised for improving environmental resource management and bringing socio-economic returns to local communities. In short: it works for both people and forests. Since the 1990s, Tanzania has pioneered locally controlled forestry (also known as African participatory forest management). Supported by donors and NGOs, the government has transferred management of more than 2.5 million hectares of forest and woodland to local communities, restoring forests and improving environmental services. But converting and scaling up this transfer of natural capital into long-term economic benefits for communities remains a challenge. We present three emerging sustainable community forest enterprises that have delivered important social, economic and conservation benefits, and explore options for scaling up these approaches across Tanzania and elsewhere.

    Year: 2019

    Source: International Institute for Environment and Development

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      USAID commissioned a team to review the SAGUN PHE project in Nepal. In this evaluation, the team identified gaps, opportunities, lessons, and practices specific to the PHE approach. The team gathered with Community Forest User Groups, the Ministry of Health, and various national and international NGOs to discuss these findings in an effort to create a PHE project that would best fit the needs of communities. This report builds off these findings and focuses on PHE recommendations for Nepal moving forward.

      Year: 2006

      Source: United States Agency for International Development

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        This report focuses on the results of a USAID/Nepal funded project, Strengthening Actions for Good Governance and Utilization of Natural Resources (SAGUN) in various forested regions of Nepal. An analysis was made of the lessons learned and best practices for applying user-group management to forest conservation. Despite the some political unrest in the country, the assessment group discovered many positive key findings that demonstrated how the Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) approach works well from all perspectives: improved grassroots-level governance capacity; improved livelihoods empowering and building the capacity of excluded groups and the poor; increased coverage and quality of forests covered, and the biodiversity and organisms protected; and low cost and effectiveness. User groups in forest or buffer zones proved to be a great entry point for integrating forest conservation with other social issues. This report discusses the future of the user group approach, and possibilities of integrating it with PHE, community-based development, or community forest conservation.

        Year: 2006

        Source: United States Agency for International Development

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          Population, health, and environment (PHE) programs link conservation, health, and family planning interventions. These programs are generally located in biodiversity hotspots, where population pressure may contribute to environmental degradation. This review describes the general structure of PHE programs and provides examples to highlight various aspects of this approach. It focuses on a case study from the Integrating Population and Health into Forestry Management Agendas program in Nepal that addressed deforestation from fuel-wood harvesting, indoor air pollution from wood fires, acute respiratory infections related to smoke inhalation, as well as family planning in communities in Nepal’s densely populated forest corridors. Keys to the success of the project included empowerment of community forest user groups with PHE program know-how and appropriate technology. Lessons learned highlight the critical role that nongovernmental organizations can play to catalyze cross-sectoral responses to complex development issues. The PHE approach can be effective for achieving sustainable development and meeting conservation and health objectives.

          Year: 2011

          Source: Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine

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