The First ASEAN-Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change Learning Group

The five-day ASFCC LG workshop, organized by RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests and funded by the ASEAN Social Forestry Network (ASFN) Project, was intended to encourage discussions and brainstorming between experts and partners in SF from each AMS in order to develop a shared learning mechanism for further action. 

As part of the shared learning mechanism, a short story was introduced as a tool for disseminating information to the public. Short stories are expected to be able to illustrate how SF works in each of the AMS. By seeing the real story unfolding on the ground, policy makers and the general public are able to see the similarities and differences of SF case studies in the ASEAN region, and hopefully, this practice will generate common understanding on how to make SF successful.

At the same time, in order to support the stories with reliable and accurate information, a working database of relevant SF and climate change information for the ASEAN region as a whole, as well as for each individual AMS, was being introduced and verified by the LG members. This database consists of national level data, including the general national statistics in each country, and is careful to pay attention to how each country defines certain terms related to SF.

This 1st ASFCC LG workshop was concluded with an action plan that LG members will carry out by developing their own short stories based on information and observations that are gathered from the field. It is expected that in the next ASFCC LG workshop, which is tentatively scheduled for February 2013, the LG members will be able to report on their progress or share the short stories that they have developed.

As part of the commitment to keep on sharing information and learning materials, a dedicated website of the ASFCC LG is being developed. Once it is complete, the website will serve as a reference for all ASFCC LG activities, and all the learning materials and short stories that are developed by the LG members will be placed there.