Questions/Answers

Kho Nuea sub-district, Mueang district, Yasothon province, consists of 7 villages, 710 households with the population of 3,496. Most of the people earn their living from agriculture with the average income of 1,250 Baht/person/month. Due to its unique geographical feature as a wetland and remote area, they were annually affected by flooding which covers over 80% of the agricultural areas. When they are unable to engage in their primary careers, some of them, therefore, invaded the Dong Man forest zone, the public utility, to conduct agricultural activities and build their accommofation because the forest zone located on a highland where the flood is unable to affect. The incident degraded the vast areas of Dong Man forest area, approximately 3,006 rai (480.96 hectare) or around 50% of the area; and the conflict among the locals existed due to limited land and resources competition. The Royal Forest Department (RFD) introduced the idea of planting forests in the heart of people which later came into practice to encourage people and the forest to live together with the goals of forest rehabilitation, natural food source regeneration, forest career development, and life quality improvement within the community although the flood problem is inevitable.

The initiative is aligned to the award category of promoting integrated policy mechanisms for sustainable development by encouraging local people to participate in planning and decision-making process with an ability to find solutions to problems by themselves. Moreover, using participatory governance administration mechanisms by allowing relevant government and private sectors to act as collaborating partnership and facilitators to promote and support necessary various resources.

The initiative corresponds to 2 SDGs: (1) SDG 1: Poverty Reduction, and (2) SDG 15: Life on Land which focus on ecosystem utilization due to the fact that this project promote forest management to maximize benefits, both in terms of forest maintenance by paradigm shift of the local people from destroyers to guardians of forest resources and ecosystems under framework of cooperation building and public awareness. Moreover, the establishment of research development to enhance capacity professional forester by focusing on increasing the production potential of natural food sources and searching the ways to increase the products value.

Social and Economic Dimension, this project promoted the assembly of the locals who collect forest products in the form of cooperatives and establish a forest product factory. Environment Dimension, the establishment of Dong Man Community Forest network and appointed a committee consisting of representatives from government, local people and private sectors to manage the Dong Man community forest, founded fund for community forest development and basic research on production techniques of dipterocarp spp.,tree seedlings with mycorrhizal fungi to create incentives for afforestation through establish learning centers and pilot community model to extent and expand the operations to other areas.

The project promotes participatory formal administration in the area by allowing thelocal people to involve the process of collaborative thinking, planning, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. The process influences the people in the community to realize the importance of problem solving, conflict resolution, and collaboration with government agencies until the project is successful which local people coexist with Dong Man forest.

Most of the women in the village are responsible for looking after children and home, but they earn unsustainable income; therefore, to promote the integration of the women group by establishing forest product cooperative under the trademark of “Vanathip OTOP” (One Tumbon One Product), to create more employment opportunities and establish marketing channels. As a result of the establishment, these female members are able to earn more revenues to support their family and improve their well-being.

Kho Nuea sub-district, Mueang district, Yasothon province, consists of 7 villages, 710 households with the population of 3,496, who suffered from agricultural problems. At the moment, the locals can earn money from the forest without destroying the forest as a result of the efforts to paradigm shift of the local people to live together with forest. Nowadays, the community is involved in forest care and utilizes non-timber forest products (NTFPs) which can reduce family’s expenses while increase the family’s income and improve their well-being, although the flood problem is still inevitable due to natural conditions.

The initial phase, the project communicated and conducted public hearing to recognize the problems and needs through geo-social situation analysis a project database of 7 village was devised. The second phase, the project was employed integrated policies with the networks from the government and private sectors for multidisciplinary management of Dong Man community forest. The problem-solving was divided into 3 categories: (1) Flood problem which was resolved by the coordination with the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) and Yasothon Provincial Office to develop a water retention system and construct electric pumping stations; (2) Career development aspect which the Royal Forest Department in collaboration with Kasetsart University, Community Development Office, Departments under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Public Health Office and local entrepreneurs group, established a cooperative of forest products under the brand name “Wanathip OTOP”; and (3) Environmental aspect which the project collaborated with the community, Kho Nuea Subdistrict Administrative Organization, Yasothon Provincial Office, Monk, and related private sectors, to appoint a committee of Dong Man Community Forest Management which they formulated and monitored the community forest regulations as well as monitored and assessed the outcomes. This included the establishment of funds.The collaboration with the PTT Reforestation and Ecosystem Institute and The Mushroom Initiative to expand the effect of cultivating mycorrhizal fungi (Astraeus hygrometricus, Amanita hemibapha, and Russula delica) in Dipterocarpus species seedling to create incentives of planting trees. The final phase was developed and expanded the learning center to promote the network potential by arranging training and study tour to broaden their knowledge and horizons to youth and the general public, for example, the RFD and Office of Basic Education Commission (OBEC) organized training for Youth Camp, to disseminate knowledge and public relation via online media such as YouTube, Facebook, and other social media sites.

The main problems are divided into 2 aspects: (1) the conflicts occurred from returning the forest areas to the government to determine guidelines to manage the community forest with appropriate participation. Therefore, the public opinion was conducted to clarify objectives and benefits that community will receive from the participation with the government in the forest management; (2) the limited budget obtaining from the government caused the development process not to meet the objectives; therefore, the policy was integrated through the network partnership from both government agencies and private sectors, to develop Dong Man Community Forest Management in a multidisciplinary way.

Formerly, the government sectors were responsible for the forest management while the public sectors could not make uses of the forest. However, the roles of the government sectors was then changed, and the public were encouraged to participate and utilize the forest resources under the Community Forest Regulations, determined by the community and RFD. The research on techniques to produce Dipterocarpus seedlings andmycorrhizal fungi to create incentives for afforestation and support the development of forest career was developed. These activities persuaded the local people to be considerate and aware of their forest as their sustainable source of food and income.

The innovation is continuous development from the concept and theory of forest restoration introduced by His Majesty the King Rama IX who entitled “Planting trees in the people’s heart”, The concepts advised to grow 3 types of tree with 4 benefits. The innovative is also adapted from the thought of the King Rama X about the forest rehabilitation to enable people coexist with the forest.

Dong Man Community Forest is a learning center and a pilot model community because it is selected and awarded as the outstanding forest resource conservation community from Her Majesty Queen Sirikit. Therefore, the community forest network is expanded from 7 villages to 15 villages with the management forest area of 4,500 rai (720 hectares). The knowledge transfer and operational outcomes are extended to other areas, such as the Non Sai forest area, Kho Wang Sub-district, Kho Wang District, Yasothon Province covering 900 rai (144 hectares); and Dong Kheng Forest area, Saen Suk Sub-district, Phanom Phai District, Roi Et Province that covering 2,500 rai (400 hectares). Moreover, the results of the operation “Enhanced Reforestation by Utilizing Mycorrhizal Fungi” was published and displayed at the IWEMM 10 (The 10th International workshop on edible mycorrhizal mushrooms) between October 21st – 23rd , 2019 in Suwa, Nagano, Japan.

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The management of Dong Man Community Forest, Kho Nuea Sub-district has been integrated in the allocation of operational, personnel, resources, budgets and necessary knowledge from the government and private agencies such as the RFD, Office of the Royal Development Projects Board (ORDPB), Kho Nuea Sub-district Administrative Organization, Office Administrative of Yasothon Province, Yasothon Office of Agriculture and Cooperatives, PTT Reforestation and Ecosystem Institute, Kasetsart University, and The Mushroom Initiative from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.

Dong Man Community Forest has been official appointed as a community forest under the RFD regulations since 2003, of which framework provides clear guidelines, and regulations of community forestry. The establishment of cooperative groups under “Wanathip OTOP” trademark provides sustainable community career making the locals self-dependent through a learning center and ecotourism. These promote network capacity and expand knowledge to youth and general public while the collaboration with The Mushroom Initiative from Hong Kong increases the production capacity of the Dipterocarpus species seedlings as well as mycorrhizal fungi that can be expanded to other planting areas.

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Organization under RFD and the Community Development Department were the performance evaluators by using surveys, of which data was retrieved from the target community data collection, and satellite images as a remote sensing technique. The assessment was categorized into 2 aspects: (1) environmental assessment, consisting of increased forest area assessments and the abundance of forests; and (2) Socioeconomic assessments, consisting of evaluation of community forest dependency of communities for commercial purposes and assessment toward utilization of community forest for ecotourism, field trips, training, and other activities.

(1) Increased forest areas is assessed by using satellite images; (2) the number of wildlife that has recovered, assessed by direct surveys and records; (3) the amount of forest products, assessed from the survey of imported raw products to factory and household utilization; (4) household income, assessed by the survey record of the Department of Community Development; (5) the number of increasing cooperative networks, assessed by the number of network registration; and (6) the number of tourists, field trips, training, observing and organizing activities, assessed from the number of the registration.

Dong Man Forest Area of 3,006 rai (480.96 hectares) was destroyed more than 50% when compared with the previous time, but nowadays, the forest has been restored about 95%, and natural wildlife such as foxes and weasels have returned to the nature. The locals were able to harvest the NTFPs with the average of 8 tons/year for utilization and commercial purpose which increased the household income of 4,000,000 Baht (about 121,121 USD). That is, each individual gained the better income from forestry careers from the harvested crops with the average of 5,997 Baht/person/month (about 181 USD/person/month) What’s more, the systematic irrigation system can relieve the effect from flood and allow the community to conduct rice cultivation 2 times per year. Such results created more incentive making more people interested to join the community forest network—the villages joining the project increased from 7 villages to 15 villages and the area of the community forest management was expanded to 4,500 rai (720 hectares). As a consequence, more people (with the average of 1,471 visitors per year) are interested in coming for tourism, field trips, training, observing and organizing activities.

The project received the assistance from several organizations: (1) The people of Kho Nuea sub-district who proposed the needs, shared opinions, and drove operations of the community forest networks; (2) The RFD is the primary organization responsible for coordination and forest rehabilitation through a support toward community forest management and forestry innovations, such as research on the cultivation of mycorrhizal fungi in the Dipterocarpus species seedling and creation of a learning center for sustainable development; and (3) other related Government units and private sectors, such as the Office of Natural Resources and Environment of Yasothon Province, Agricultural and Cooperative Office of Yasothon Province, Organizations under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Kho Nuea Subdistrict Administration Organization, PTT Reforestation and Ecosystem Institute, Siam Makro Company, etc., are supporter of the budget, knowledge and necessary resources.

Dong Man Community Forest Network appointed the committee in order to drive the participatory administration mechanism. The committee were categorized into 4 groups: (1) Forest Network Management Committee, consisting of representatives from communities leader, government, civil society, several local people, and monk. The first group committee are responsible for policy making and overall planning; (2) Village Forest Network Committee, consisting of 15 groups of people, are responsible for implementation of the community forest management plan at the village level; (3) Forest Network Advisor, who are 20 relevant government agencies and private organizations. They are accountable for providing advice for the operation of the network in every dimension; and (4) Forest Network Fund Committee are responsible for administrating funds for the activities of Dong Man Community Forest Network whose fund sources come from the government and private sectors. They also have the role to distribute dividend (10% of profits) from the sale of forest products of the cooperatives.

The attitude adjustment of the community by clarifying and building confidence and faith to create incentives toward reforestation and forestry career development makes this project successful. The Future plans will focus on expansion of community forest areas and increasing forest products by planting economic trees species together with Dipterocarpus species with mycorrhiza fungi inputted. Moreover, the forest products are planned to be upgraded as a premium quality and the marketing strategy will be carefully revised as the products will be sold to both domestic and international destinations.