The pandemic is a reminder of the social, political and economic costs and challenges that come with the failure to safeguard our environment. One of the solutions is to empower the next generation with the right skills to tackle the landscape challenges of the future.
Help us by completing this global survey on forestry education. The survey is being undertaken by a project led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). It is funded by the government of Germany. The goal is to improve forest education at national and local levels in developing countries.
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The survey is available in English, Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese.
Sincerely,
Kate Greer
Editor, People and Forests Newsletter
katelyn.greer@recoftc.org
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Challenges and opportunities with land cover mapping in data-scarce environments
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Study area map highlighting Southeast and South Asia with the Hindu Kush-Himalaya and the Lower Mekong region and countries of focus.
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RECOFTC's Executive Director David Ganz co-authored with colleagues a paper in Frontiers in Environmental Science calling for the development of a consistent, flexible Regional Land Cover Monitoring System across Southeast and South Asia. This system would allow the creation of a unified pool of land cover data and land cover mapping/monitoring architecture that can be shared across agencies and countries.
The paper characterizes and responds to the key land cover mapping gaps and challenges encountered in the Lower Mekong and Hindu Kush-Himalaya regions through a needs assessment exercise and a collaborative system design. Needs were assessed using multiple approaches, including focus groups, user engagement workshops, and online surveys.
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Earth Journalism Network gives Asia-Pacific media grants
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Globally, 23 percent of all deaths could be prevented through healthier environments, according to the World Health Organization. The current COVID-19 crisis may be a preview of what's to come with climate change and environmental destruction, but it also presents a unique opportunity for green recovery and more sustainable development. And although public awareness of environmental threats is growing, there is still a disconnect between the scale of the problems and the actions that are being taken to resolve them. If you are a journalist or community group seeking to improve environmental reporting during the pandemic or have an innovative idea for an environmental reporting project, pitch your concept to possibly win a grant by 15 August 2020.
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The grants are made possible by the generous financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to the Earth Journalism Network's Asia-Pacific project.
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Mangrove conservation up against socioeconomic realities of forest resources in Myanmar
Burma News International, 28 July 2020
Arakan State residents are deleteriously cutting down mangroves growing along the state's coast to earn a living, say organizations working to conserve the valuable shoreline forests. Mangroves are deforested to sell firewood for brick-making fields and to make charcoal, said Ko Myo Lwin, a leader of the Ann Township Mangrove Trees Conservation Group.
Forestry partnerships in Jambi help small farmers, resolve conflicts
Indonesia Tribune, 28 July 2020
Many smallholder farmers in Indonesia, who depend on selling fresh oil palm fruit bunches to earn a living, are struggling to survive amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the country's palm oil exports. Company-forestry community partnerships may offer a solution to improve the livelihoods of affected farmers residing near forested areas. Social forestry partnerships can also serve as an option for resolving potential conflicts between a company and local people.
ASEAN loses a third of mangroves in last 40 years
Phnom Penh Post, 28 July 2020
The ASEAN region lost about 33 percent of its mangrove forests between 1980 and 2020. Nations that comprise ASEAN have just around 43,000 square kilometers of mangrove forests remaining. ASEAN accounts for 42 percent of the world's total mangrove forests, which provide critical breeding habitats for about 75 percent of fish species caught in the oceans. Mangroves are also Earth's protectors against the catastrophic consequences of climate change. They can store 10 times as much carbon as terrestrial ecosystems and specialized root systems make them natural buffer zones in coastal areas.
Nepal needs to shift from scientific forest management to democratic forest governance
Online Khabar, 22 July 2020
It seems the controversy surrounding scientific forest management is currently at its peak in Nepal. With over 40 percent of land area under state ownership, and with a long history of state-centric forest governance, this contradiction appears as an important opportunity to deepen democratic forest governance in Nepal. Whether it is community forestry, private forestry, or government forestry, the current political setting of planning and decision-making is more or less the same: techno-bureaucratic power dominates the scene. As a result, actual practices of forestry have been guided by the language, concepts and meanings of orthodox forestry science. Some even report that expert knowledge leads to colonization of local knowledge.
Win-win solution for forests and people
Opinion, Bangkok Post, 22 July 2020
Mae Chaem has suffered massive deforestation because of maize plantations set up to meet the needs of the animal feed industry. Burning of residues from maize production also gives off toxic haze which gravely affects people in Mae Chaem and beyond. But the situation is fast improving as the locals are turning to sustainable and agroforestry practices for agricultural production. They do so by growing indigenous trees, bamboo, vegetables, herbs, and cash crops that thrive under thick shade to help the forests regenerate. According to our calculations, the Mae Chaem project is worth almost 177 million baht with the project investment at about 21 million Thai baht. In other words, the Mae Chaem project generates around eight baht for every single baht invested to restore the forests through sustainable farming.
Activist ban 'spurs forest crimes'
Phnom Penh Post, 21 July 2020
While Cambodian Ministry of Environment officials claim they and relevant departments implement forest protection and conservation measures responsibly, forest protection activists have expressed frustration over their inability to participate in patrols where illegal logging took place. The activists complained they are barred from forest protection efforts and are being obstructed from carrying out patrols to protect illegal activity.
The wild plants in your pantry-where did they come from?
Mongabay, 20 July 2020
Wild-harvested plants seldom come from large, corporate operations. The first point in the supply chain tends to be local harvesters. Around 3,000 medicinal and aromatic plant species are traded internationally and anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of these are collected from the wild, according to a new report by the non-governmental TRAFFIC. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have increased demand for herbal remedies, some containing plant species that already face pressures due to over-harvesting. Indigenous communities are the world's wild collectors, with this incredible knowledge of how to harvest sustainably, how to maintain those populations of plants, and how to do it safely.
Why some Buddhist monks ordain trees
JSTOR, 17 July 2020
All over the world, trees are a symbol of natural ecology that environmentalists rally to protect. In Thailand, anthropologist Nicola Tannenbaum writes, they have a unique method of doing that: symbolically ordaining trees as monks. Tannenbaum writes that Buddhist monks have long been involved in social movements and development efforts in Thailand. In the early 1980s, they were part of missionary and development programs, supporting the national goals of education, development, and modernization. However, many of them came to see modernization, at least in the form of industrialization, urbanization, and the spread of Western values, as a problem. One particularly important thinker was the monk Buddhadasa, who tied the Buddhist belief in connections among all living beings to ecological work. Influenced by these ideas, some monks drew connections between reliance on environmentally destructive land-clearing for cash crops and the self-destructive drive for material things.
Traditional practices and beliefs in landscape management
Forest News, 16 July 2020
Traditional and local beliefs, taboos, norms and knowledge play such a critical role in conserving local biodiversity and landscapes that researchers are now considering whether these might be applied more widely and in a variety of locations that are under threat. Could informal institutions-including belief systems and practices-become more recognized as supports in preserving biodiversity and landscapes on a larger scale? If so, could these be applied in Indonesia's biodiversity-rich but threatened Kapuas River watershed in West Kalimantan?
In the battle to save forests, a make-or-break moment for REDD+
Mongabay, 15 July 2020
In September 2019, something significant happened in the world of forest conservation: Norway agreed to pay Gabon US$10 per metric ton of carbon to reduce its emissions from deforestation. REDD+ advocates saw Norway's offer as a big deal, given that the going price had long been stuck at US$5 per metric ton, an amount Costa Rica's minister of environment, Carlos Manuel Rodr?guez, calls "an insult to anyone who is working to stop deforestation."
Koh Kong villagers trade logging for agriculture
Phnom Penh Post, 13 July 2020
Over 200 families living in Koh Kong province's Sovanna Green Village Community who used to log timber and hunt wild animals for a living have now turned to agriculture to sustain themselves. Ath Noch, the head of Sovanna Green Village Community said that residents were very happy because they were granted land for permanent and legal occupation. They had also received training in agricultural techniques to strategically grow rice.
Khokana locals, police clash over 'paddy transplantation protest'
Kathmandu Post, 13 July 2020
In Nepal, a clash erupted between locals of Khokana and police when the authorities intervened in a "paddy transplantation protest" in Sudol, Khokana on the outskirts of Lalitpur, the gateway to the Kathmandu-Nijgadh expressway. Local residents of Khokana say that half a dozen development projects planned in the area will uproot their traditional settlements. They have long expressed dissatisfaction over these projects as the government has neither provided them sufficient compensation nor sought their participation while designing the projects that threaten their cultural sites.
New report shows payoffs of environmental protection
Asia Times, 10 July
In the most comprehensive report to date on the economic implications of protecting nature, more than 100 economists and scientists find that the global economy would benefit from the establishment of far more protected areas on land and at sea than exist today. About 15 percent of the world's land and 7 percent of the ocean has some protection. The report finds projects that add protections would lead to an average of US$250 billion in increased economic output annually, and an average of at least US$350 billion in improved ecosystem services annually, compared with the status quo.
Solutions to conserving wetlands
Khmer Times, 8 July 2020
More than 50 government officials, civil society organisations and stakeholders held a meeting yesterday to discuss, share experiences and find solutions for the protection and conservation of Mekong River wetlands to be more effective and sustainable. Tek Vannara, executive director of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, said the Mekong River, wetland and Tonle Sap Lake are rich in biodiversity and aquatic animals which are an important source of protein for 80 percent of Cambodians who depend on the Mekong Basin. "The results of this discussion will be compiled as a document for organising a development plan which will be submitted to the government to create a policy for implementation," said Vannara.
Inability to Resolve Cambodia's Land Disputes Tied to Official Complicity: Minister of Interior
Radio Free Asia, 7 July 2020
Cambodia's government is unable to resolve the country's myriad land disputes because many of them involve senior officials, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said in a rare acknowledgement as a rights group urged authorities to take action against all perpetrators of illegal land grabs equally. Cambodia's land issues date from the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, which forced large-scale evacuations and relocations, followed by a period of mass confusion over land rights and the formation of squatter communities when the refugees returned in the 1990s after a decade of civil war.
Voices from the mountains
Bangkok Post, 6 July 2020
Kla Kla Chi Klu Ngu-thus began a song once hummed joyfully by farmers as they went about slashing trees and grass to clear land. For the Pakakeryor folks, also called Karens, the sound in their language was a signal of new beginnings, of hope, of fertility. But not any more. Now the ethnic people cannot sing while working. They have little time to finish clearing the land left fallow over the past seven years, to burn twigs, branches and leaves, as they have to plant seeds of rice and vegetables before the first drops of rain arrive. Although their practice of rotation farming has been recognized as part of Thailand''s cultural heritage according to the cabinet resolution issued on Aug 3, 2010, recent spates of wildfires have triggered debates on the possible causes. Unfortunately, the Pakakeryors'' centuries-old farming method has been cast as a culprit.
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Intern for Study Tour and Blended Learning Facilitator, RECOFTC
Bangkok, Thailand
Deadline: 3 August 2020
Intern, RECOFTC Indonesia
Bogor, Indonesia
Deadline: 5 August 2020
Senior Researcher: Nature-Climate Policy Lead, IIED
London, England
Deadline: 6 August 2020
Project Lead, Energy Policy Southeast Asia, Agora Energiewende
Bangkok, Thailand
Deadline: 9 August 2020
Project Finance Officer, Climate Analytics Inc.
Berlin, Germany
Deadline: 9 August 2020
Grants Manager, RECOFTC
Bangkok, Thailand
Deadline: 15 August 2020
Program Officer in Business Development, RECOFTC
Bangkok, Thailand
Deadline: 15 August 2020
Program Officer, Environment, Hewlett Foundation
Menlo Park, CA, US
Deadline: 15 August 2020
Project Manager, Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFNet)
Beijing, China
Deadline: 31 August 2020
Email Anna Finke and Sun Weina your resume, cover letter and a sample of your previous work.
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FAO publishes Global Forest Resources Assessments by country
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has been monitoring the world's forest resources through periodic assessments conducted in cooperation with its member countries. The information provided by the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) presents a comprehensive view of the world's forests and the ways in which the resource is changing. This supports the development of sound policies, practices and investments affecting forests and forestry. The 2020 report is now available by country.
Unseen foresters: An assessment of approaches for wider recognition and spread of sustainable forest management by local communities
New World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report, researched by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), highlights alternative approaches by which sustainable forest management can deliver more for Indigenous Peoples and other local communities. But these communities are often unseen and their important role unaccounted for when rights to forests are decided. Their local models of governance can help protect forests better than many other forms of forest stewardship. The report comprises an investigation of the possible ways in which approaches could be established-or existing ones better used-to engage with Indigenous Peoples and other local communities in credible verification of sustainable forest management, as complements to certification.
Investor guide to deforestation and climate change
This Ceres guide is the result of extensive input from investors and deforestation experts. It gives investors a framework to understand and engage on deforestation-driven climate risks across their portfolios. It is especially intended for engagement specialists who are relatively new to deforestation and may be engaging on climate risk but not deforestation risk. The guide will help them understand the drivers of deforestation risk and prioritize company engagements based on industries, geographies and sourcing patterns. It also outlines key expectations that investors should be looking for in a company's climate and deforestation commitments and example questions for company engagements. Lastly, the guide provides concrete next steps the investors can take to address deforestation risk.
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For more information please contact:
Kate Greer
Editor, People and Forests E-News
Knowledge Management & Strategic Communication Unit
recoftc.newsletter@gmail.com
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RECOFTC
P.O. Box 1111, Kasetsart Post Office
Bangkok, 10903, Thailand
Phone: (662) 940-5700
Fax: (662) 561-4880, (662) 562-0960
info@recoftc.org
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