Back to news
30 Mar 2018 | REDD+

Governance study of Community-Based Forest Management Systems (CBFMS) completed in Myanmar

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism (REDD+) is designed for developing countries where, coincidentally, Community-Based Forest Management Systems (CBFMS) have become more popular. In 2002, about 22% of the total forest area was legally under CBFMS and in 2007, it increased to 27%. Eventually, forest management regimes in developing countries could be dominated by CBFMS.

1 min Read

70% Complete
Dr Tek Maraseni, University of Southern Queensland presents the results of the study Photo: Nabin Bhattarai/ICIMOD

Dr Tek Maraseni from the University of Southern Queensland, along with Griffith University in Australia and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Japan, has developed a methodology to evaluate the quality of forest governance in developing countries. The methodology employs both a top-down and bottom-up approach, includes multi-stakeholders, and uses multilevel and multistage consultation processes. This methodology was tested in Nepal’s community forestry with funding support from IGES, and in Papua New Guinea with support from the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), Japan.

To replicate and customize using a normative framework of principles, criteria and indicators, this study aimed to assess governance quality and develop “verifiers” for eleven governance indicators for CBFMS at local, sub-national and national levels in four countries—Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Mizoram in India.

A total of 30 participants attended a consultative workshop organized in Nyung Shw, Myanmar on 19 February 2018. At the workshop Maraseni shed light on the background of the study and presented the results before conducting ranking of verifiers. He said, “Governance is understood as ‘governance as a structure’ and ‘governance as a process’, and the higher the interaction with the structure and process the better the governance quality.”


Participants at the consultative workshop, Myanmar, Photo: Nabin Bhattarai/ICIMOD

A total of 94 questionnaires were collected for Myanmar. Data collection was carried out at three different levels for each country i.e. local, sub-national and national. In Myanmar, 30 questionnaires for local, 34 for sub-national and 30 for national level were collected. The study revealed that the durability of community forests is the most important indicator of quality governance in CBFMs. According to Maraseni, governance in CBFMs in Myanmar is better compared to governance in REDD+.

Maraseni said it took seven years to complete all the steps for assessing the governance quality of REDD+ in Nepal and Papua New Guinea.

The participants were provided with a list of verifiers for each indicator. They were requested to make the refinement for the verifiers and finally to rank the verifiers on the basis of their importance. This was done because the government cannot implement all the verifiers at once; ranking helps the government to prioritize its actions and resources to help improve the governance of CBFMs.

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up

Related content

Continue exploring this topic

31 Jul 2015 News
Hope for Kyaung Taung’s water woes

The village of Kyaung Taung in the Inle Lake area in Myanmar sits atop a hill overlooking Heho city. And ...

17 Nov 2015 News
The Music in Ziro

  By 7am, we were in Ziro. Rubu got us on the road that crisscrossed the vast horizon of paddy fields. ...

12 Oct 2015 HKPL
Pakistani students learn about permafrost and glacier monitoring

A two day workshop on permafrost and glaciers was held 15-16 September at Karakoram International University (KIU) in ...

30 Jul 2018 HUC
HUC Academy 2018: Building Mountain Research Capacity

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, a global asset for food, energy and water resources, is ...

1 Mar 2015 News
Second Workshop on Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP)

Perceiving Drivers of Change as the key global issues and trends driving change in the HKH Region, International Centre for ...

3 Jun 2016 Water
Kailash Sacred Landscape Initiative Addresses Water Worries Across the Region

‘We prefer to wait for water at the springs over attending meetings’, said a woman of Digtoli village, around 41 ...

11 Dec 2015 News
UAV Research in Khumbu Valley

Against the unparalleled backdrop of Everest and Nuptse, the late November sun warms the glaciologist slightly as he prepares for ...