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Seminar on Community Forests for Poverty reduction


Mr. Karma Dukpa, Director of DoFPS with the participants

The Community Forests (CFs) Programme of the Department of Forests and Park Services (DoFPS) has potential for contributing towards national efforts of poverty reduction. This is because, such programme besides encouraging participatory management of forests and natural resources provides avenues for deriving economic benefits. Such economic benefits can have direct bearing on bringing down poverty incidences. With its reach currently confined to rural areas, it is also in sync with the poverty which is predominantly a rural phenomenon.
However, after having almost 305 Community Forests incepted in Bhutan involving 35,993 rural households covering forest area of 40,329 hectares, the need was felt to timely assess its impact on poverty reduction. Towards this, the Chief Forestry Officers (CFOs) of field divisions, Park Managers (PMs) and Dzongkhag Forestry Officers (DzFOs) gathered at Bumthang attending “Seminar on Community Forests for Poverty’.
During the seminar, the plenary and presentations were made by the officials and researchers within and outside DoFPS. The international, regional and fields experiences encompassing all components of CFs with its relevance to poverty reduction were shared at the seminar in addition to case studies. The members of the CFs and Non-wood Forests Product Management Group also shared their substantial hands-on experiences.
Moreover, the seminar also enabled different stakeholders of CF development in the Country to delve into constraints and issues confronting them and accordingly resolve it. If there were any ‘stumbling blocks’ in the smooth flow of CF programme, things were smoothed during the two-day seminar. The seminar also saw many deliberations all of which borne a fruitful results.
The seminar co-hosted by Social Forestry Division (SFD) with Ugyen Wangchuck Institute of Conservation and Environment (UWICE) will publish the proceedings and issue to all relevant stakeholders.
The Director of DoFPS, Mr. Karma Dukpa chaired the 2-day seminar and was attended by many other officials.
The funding for the seminar was provided by Royal Government of Bhutan and Participatory Forest Management Project (PFMP), Helvetas.

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