Ethio-Wetlands and Natural Resources Association (EWNRA); REDD+ PFM Project Southwest Ethiopia

To reduce the occurrence of deforestation and forestdegradations and to achieve sustainable management offorested landscapes in the area; EWNRA together with itspartners has developed and fine -tuned, a multi-facetedapproach called Participatory Forest management (PFM).

There are seven basic steps necessary for a community toundertake with guidance from government staff, to qualifyfor the formal hand over of forest managementresponsibilities and user rights. The key steps, developed bythe EWNRA in collaboration with partner governmentinstitutions , to guide a community to successful PFMimplementation, are shown in the right side illustration

7. Monitoring , evaluation and responsiveness

6. Forest management implementation and enterprise development

2. Boundary negotiation & demarcation

4. Organizing Community based institution

1. Getting started

5. PFM agreement signing and awareness raising

3. Forest mgt planning

Forest of southwest Ethiopia is one of the last two remaining forest areas of relatively intact high montane forests in the country that goes over fourregional states (Benishangul, Gambela, Oromia and Southern Nations and Nationalities People’s Regional State). The southwest forest has significantimportance for local and global communities as it plays role in securing rural livelihood, poverty reduction, climate stabilization and hydrologicalmoderation.

Despite its importance the forest landscape of southwest Ethiopia is under most threat due to deforestation and forest degradation. The causes are numerous but the main one is insecure forest tenure opened the path for:1. Forest targeted small and large scale investments2. Community members losing the will to invest in forest management and

behaving rationally in converting the forest to agriculture. 3. Weak institutional, legislative and policy elements along with financial

and technical limitations

Conversions of forest land to other land uses in the southwest Ethiopia

The REDD+ PFM southwest Ethiopia Project is implemented by EWNRA in collaboration with

Regional states of Gambela, Oromia and SNNP. It is funded by NORAD through the Development Fund of

Norway (DF).

In achieving the principles of PFM and for the sustainable management of forest landscapes EWNRA is implementing a strategy which includes:1. policy backing for securing tenure to community members

over forest resources,

2. increasing sustainable returns from forest management through forest based enterprise development,

3. Enabling community rights to be enshrined in legislation and strengthening community voice through strong community based organizations

See the right side illustration

A. Policy backing for local forest control

B. Forest-based enterprise

development

Secure local forest use rights combined with increased forest benefits leads to responsible & sustainable forest management

by local people

C. Forest-centered institutions

Impacts and challenges of PFM

Impacts Challenges

The recovery and/or maintenance of forest quality Scepticism among professionals

Improvements of the livelihoods of local forest dependent community Lack of sustainability of actions

Provided practical evidences for the development of new proclamations Limitations on the enforcement of law

Hinges on the cooperation of the local people and paves the way for equitable benefit sharing

In some cases existence of resource use conflicts

Key Lessons from the PFM implementations

1. Banning in the use of most forest products has resulted increasing the pressure to convert the forest to agriculture and promoting illegal and uncontrolled use.

2. Increased control and use rights for local people is key to motivating them to manage the forest on sustainable bases.

3. If well dealt PFM can bring a win-win situations between livelihood and forest conservation and can be used as a vehicle for sustainable landscape management