Country:

DRC

Region:

Africa

Date:

September 2016 - February 10, 2017

Implementor:

Center for the Support of Sustainable Tropical Forest Management (CAGDFT)

Funding Amount:

$78,235

Details:

Centre D’Appui à la Gestion Durable des Fôrets Tropicales (Center for the Support of Sustainable Tropical Forest Management, or CAGDFT), in partnership with Réseau CREF and FODI, undertook a project aimed at identifying and using tools to implement community forestry, coupled with an educational campaign to raise awareness about these issues in the provinces of Nord-Kivu and Equateur. They conducted trainings with Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and local and provincial authorities around the provisions for Local Community Forest Concessions (LCFC) stemming from Decree 14/018 and Ministerial Order 025. The LCFC are plots of land granted to communities by the government, to be owned and managed by the local communities and Indigenous Peoples who receive the titles. Under each LCFC granted by the provincial government, concessions are allocated in perpetuity to the local communities and Indigenous Peoples, so long as the title holders respect the rules governing sustainable management. Through this SRM, CAGDFT, Reseau CREF, and FODI were able to support four communities in their applications for the LCFC, potentially securing 174,000 hectares of forest. During the project, CAGDFT identified several opportunities to develop and extend the project to more provinces in the DRC, and the initial projects in North Kivu and Equateur will serve as models for future work to secure community forests.

Read about this project in our blog post, “An unprecedented community forestry initiative in DRC.”