Focali seminar about Community Forestry in Cambodia
Focali researcher Robin Biddulph has conducted studies in Cambodia for several years focusing on community forestry.
when: Apr 23, 2010 10:45 AM to Apr 23, 2010 12:00 PM
where: Ottorummet (eller B521) våning 5 på B-huset, Handelshögskolan, Göteborg
attendees: Robin Biddulph
This is a highly relevant study since forests is a hot topic on the international climate change agenda. The seminar is part of a Focali seminar series and it will take place on the 23rd of April between 10:45-12:00. The seminar will be in English with discussions in Swedish and English.
Welcome!
Below is a description of the seminar entitled "Community Forestry Fails Again: An old tale retold in Cambodia"
Research conducted over a three year period in a Khmer forest village in northeast Cambodia describes the livelihoods of the inhabitants and explains the factors enabling and constraining those livelihoods. In this context it describes the story of a community forestry project in the village based on interviews with villagers, national and international NGO workers, forestry administration officials and the local boss of the private company granted successive logging and agricultural concessions in the district.
The account has much in common with other research conducted in the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand and raises some familiar issues: authorities steering community forestry away from high-value forest and using it to draw the sting of local activism; CBNRM agencies being oriented to support livelihoods and aspirations which are quite different to the actual livelihoods and aspirations of villagers.
In this context, Robin will raise questions about the potential role of an expanded role for companies with forest concessions in poverty reduction, and will also ask whether agencies need to have a bottom-line commitment to either poverty reduction or forest management to avoid being nonplussed when the two are not mutually supportive.
