Objectives

The overall goal of the expert consultation is to promote sustainable management (of forests and other natural resources) by contributing to strengthened processes across a full spectrum of program/project/activity design, formulation, approval, recruitment, implementation, closure, catalytic impacts, etc.

Specifically, this consultation aims to:

1. Draw out stories of unexpected outcomes from past forestry and natural resources interventions in the region, which may be positive or negative. Focus will be particularly on identifying outcomes that may not have been programmed in project or program designs;
2. Identify a set of key lessons learned mainly from programs/activities/projects that are perceived to have been unsuccessful or only partially successful that in the future can contribute to better program design, implementation and outcomes; and
3. Identify past programs/activities/projects that can serve as case studies (or supplementary examples within case studies) to illustrate the lessons learned.

A key principle of the consultation is not to dwell with excessive negativity of failures, but to use constructive criticism to identify important means for improvement in the future.

Presentations

• Case Study 1: ITTO Target 2000 (Steve Johnson)
• Case Study 2: Failure? Or Success Interrupted? The Case of REDD+ in Indonesia (Heru Prasetyo)
• Case Study 3: Can “Success” or “Failure” be Designed in? Refections and Lessons from Bangladesh and Viet Nam Foresty/Conservation Projects (Javed Mir)
• Case Study 4: Enriching/Line Planting Initiatives in Peninsula, Malaysia (Tang Hon Tat)
• Case Study 5: Community Forestry Component of a Rural Development Project in Tajikistan (Ian Armitage)
• Case Study 6: Can Centralized Decentralization of Community Forests be Implemented? A Case of China (Jinlong Liu)
• Case Study 7: Forest People Facing Change in the Philippines (Sylvia Miclat)
• Case Study 8: Some Encounters with Forestry Failures and What I Have Learned from Them (CTS Nair)
• Case Study 9: Community-Based Forest Management: The Unfnished Journey (Pat Dugan)
• Case Study 10: Strategies for Learning From Failure (Fred Dubee)
• Case Study 11: Stripping the Strips: The Non-Adoption of Soil-and-Water Conservation Technologies in Northern Thailand (Thomas Enters)
• Case Study 12: Being Seen to be Doing…: A Forest Crime Monitoring and Reporting Project in Cambodia (Patrick Durst)

Summary report