Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

with Indigenous Peoples can offer. Sophisticated forest
management, product processing, and marketing have
enhanced participating communities’ livelihoods and
improved natural resource management (box 1.17).
Recommendations for future activities. This note has
discussed some of the operational aspects and lessons learned
concerning forest-based projects affecting Indigenous
Peoples. These can be summarized into the following key
recommendations for future forestry activities involving
Indigenous Peoples:
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Recognize Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their land and
natural resources, and to benefits from development
activities, as well as the need for consultation and participation
throughout the planning, implementation, monitoring,
and evaluation processes.
Base project preparation and implementation on wellprepared
and well-executed consultations with Indigenous
Peoples and sound social and institutional analysis
providing a thorough understanding of the local context
and affected communities.
Ensure that project activities affecting Indigenous Peoples
are based on a sound process of free, prior, and
informed consultations with affected communities leading
to broad community support.
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Support CBFM, emphasizing community ownership and
collaborative arrangements (see note 1.2, Community-
Based Forest Management).
Support livelihood activities and ensure equitable benefits
to affected Indigenous Peoples.
Pay attention to the requirements of the Bank’s Indigenous
Peoples policy (OP 4.10) early on in project preparation,
and make clear agreements with the borrower well before
project appraisal.
NOTE
1. To inform the World Bank’s Forest Policy Implementation
Review and Strategy Development Framework, an independent
study was undertaken to assess how the Bank has
addressed the issue of Indigenous Peoples in selected World
Bank and GEF-funded forestry and biodiversity conservation
projects in Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea,
and Siberia (Clay, Alcorn, and Butler 2000). The lessons
learned and recommendations are drawn from that study.
SELECTED READINGS
Beltran, J. ed. 2000. “Indigenous and Traditional Peoples
and Protected Areas: Principles, Guidelines and Case
Studies.” IUCN and Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales.
Box 1.17
Mexico First and Second Community Forestry Projects
The objectives of these two Community Forestry Projects
(also titled PROCYMAF I and II) are to assist Indigenous
Peoples’ communities and ejidos (communal land owning
units) in different priority regions of Mexico to
improve the management and conservation of their forest
resources and to generate alternative sources of
income in a sustainable manner. Lessons from these projects
suggest that community forestry is an effective
instrument for sustainable rural development, building
on existing local economic, social, and biophysical conditions
and encompassing the development of social capital
(based on traditional forms of governance), a minimum
base of natural capital (forest resources with
commercial value), and the development of technical
and administrative capacity (human capital) at the community
level to enhance decision-making powers.
The first project focused its community forestry activities
on diagnostics and participatory planning aimed at
self-management, including the financing of Participatory
Rural Appraisals, enabling indigenous communities
to take a more active role in natural resource management
decisions based on an improved understanding of
their needs, capabilities, and interests. In this way the
project was successful in empowering local communities
to improve management of their forest resources and
expanding their options for income generation.
While the first project helped increase the competitiveness
of community forest enterprises and opened
up new markets for certified forest products from Mexico,
a key lesson learned was the need to include significant
funding for productive activities, particularly for
processes that add market value to forest products and
achieve economies of scale through community associations
and strategic partnerships with the private sector.
Source: World Bank 2004. See also box 1.13 for discussion of the Community Forestry Project in Mexico (Project for Conservation
and Sustainable Management of Forest Resources).
NOTE 1.3: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND FORESTS 47