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  • A guide to investing in collectively held resources

A guide to investing in collectively held resources

15 March, 2019

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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Impact investors typically finance businesses that seek to challenge the status quo, valuing environmental and social outcomes to deliver more sustainable returns on investment. Microfinance institutions such as Grameen and FINCA lead the way in financing poor and marginalized groups. Now, however, increasing attention is being given to help investors respect land rights and form equitable partnerships with communities living in rural areas. Communities are increasingly being given rights to manage the world¹s remaining common pool resources (CPR) – such as forests, pastures and fisheries – as common property. As such, investors interested in accessing and developing these resources have the opportunity to work with a new investment partner, the community user group (CUG). This guide is designed to help investors better understand the challenges and opportunities of investing in resources managed collectively by a community – where the community is the principal investment partner! In this guide we draw on examples and lessons learned from four case-study countries considered to have the most successful arrangements for collectively managing natural resources. The case countries are Guatemala, Mexico and Nepal, which have devolved forest rights to communities, and Namibia, which has devolved wildlife rights.

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  • Forest biodiversity monitoring: Guide to community-based approaches

Forest biodiversity monitoring: Guide to community-based approaches

05 March, 2019

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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Monitoring of natural resources and their management is a key element for effective decision-making in constantly changing and uncertain situations. Monitoring can reduce risks, increase transparency and accountability, enhance learning, and improve the successful implementation of activities. It helps ensure that changes to management approaches come from learning and reflection instead of hasty reactions or unilateral decisions. Involving local communities in monitoring initiatives makes the process more participatory and contextually relevant, less dependent on external inputs, simpler and usually less expensive. Participatory monitoring initiatives, particularly the ones that are community driven, can increase the sense of ownership towards the management of natural resources and favour the development of adaptive management strategies by facilitating discussion, participation and learning within local communities. This guide is designed to help facilitators develop community-based monitoring initiatives for forest biodiversity by providing a series of steps, recommendations and examples to guide the process. While the guide applies to forest biodiversity, similar approaches can be used to monitor other aspects of natural-resource management. The guide includes tips on using participatory tools for the collection of biodiversity data and insights on how to encourage the participation of local actors across social groups in decision-making processes that affect forest biodiversity resources in their communities and surrounding landscapes.

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  • Are community forests a viable model for the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Are community forests a viable model for the Democratic Republic of Congo?

06 February, 2019

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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Since the second half of the 2000s, several options for implementing community-based forest management in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), like the local community forest concession (LCFC), have been discussed in the country’s technical and political circles. Proposals and pilot testing have increased in the last five years, but the funding of initiatives is often proposed for divergent purposes and taking different approaches. We reviewed current experiences in the Eastern province of the DRC and found that nobody has carried out an estimation of the financial returns of the business models they drew up for/with the communities involved. We therefore conducted a financial feasibility analysis for two case studies, estimating the costs of developing/implementing activities and the benefits expected for the communities within the next five years. Three main conclusions were drawn from the analysis: (1) most activities conducted under the LCFC model deal with rural development, and not with forestry operations per se; (2) several forestry activities such as biodiversity conservation or carbon sequestration are not detailed in the management documents and appear to have little legitimacy for local populations; (3) the two LCFCs show a negative financial performance because the inception and implementation costs are substantially higher than the medium-term profits. Community forestry is unlikely to develop in the DRC unless local people are guaranteed that it will contribute to improving their livelihoods, notably their financial and physical capital. This requires that LCFC initiatives focus on actual productive uses of forest resources, which financial performance is systematically assessed ex ante. A simplification of the legal constraints is also needed to reduce the cost of creating and managing a LCFC.

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