Two weeks ago CEPF’s President, Stefan Schenker, signed the contract for a project with the World Bank. The project is titled: “Private and community forestry – developing livelihoods on the basis of secure property rights in selected countries of South East Europe (SEE)”.
The main objective of this 18 month project is to explore ways of activating private and community forestry and the enhancement of their abilities to fully participate in policy development, the forest-wood chain or service markets.
National administration and private/community forest owner associations in Albania,
Macedonia and Serbia will be assisted within the frame of the country national forest programme (NFP) processes in searching solutions for the challenges and opportunities of private and community forestry. This work will be facilitated by regional and national conferences/workshops and an updating status quo analysis on the forestry sector in the three target countries.
Further objectives are:
1. Gaining livelihood from private and community forests play a key role in their activation. Currently the economic potential of private and community forestry is negligible. This results in a low interest level for sustainable forest management. The livelihood approach in private and community forest policies will be strengthened in cooperation with national project partners.
2. Contribution to enforcement of existing regulation on resource management and executing property rights to fight forest crimes.
3. National forest programmes’ implementation will benefit as the NFPs’ relevant parts for private and community forestry will be addressed in cooperation with national administrations. This cooperation will be effectively assisted through workshops and conferences to be organized within the project. With objectives 1-3 better governance in forestry and cross-sectoral issues of private/community forests will be addressed as well.
4. Building up of networks for exchange of experiences and lessons learnt at the sub-regional level. This is especially important as three countries will participate directly in implementation.
For further information, please contact Dr. Atilla Lengyel at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.