From 1987 through 2001, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) supported about 80% of its community forestry activities through the Forest, Trees and People Programme (FTPP).  Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, France, and Italy provided FTPP US$2.5 to 3 million per year.  The FAO Regular Programme supplemented this amount with around US$400,000 annually.  The FTPP has now ended as planned.

FTPP was a consortium of regional network centers that supported training, information exchange, and methods development.  Within FAO, the Community Forestry Unit (CFU) of the Forestry Policy and Institutions Branch (FONP) provided central guidance to the regional centers.

FTPP published newsletters in English, Spanish, and French, each with different editors and different content.  The most widely distributed newsletter was The Forest, Trees, and People Newsletter – produced by the Research Information Center of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala and edited by Daphne Thuvesson. 

Beginning in 1994, ISTF participated in FTPP by administering the FTPP North American Caribbean Regional Centre – English (NACARCE).  NACARCE printed the FTP Newsletter for distribution in the region and distributed FAO community forestry publications to 850 NACARCE members.  NACARCE shared office space with ISTF in the Bethesda, Maryland, headquarters of the Society of American Foresters.

The programme produced 46 issues of the English language newsletter.  Over 70 technical publications covering topics as wide-ranging as conflict management, food security and income generation, gender, and case studies were produced and distributed.  A complete list of outputs of the programme will be cataloged by an evaluation now underway by FAO.

Daphne Thuvesson has tabulated in the final issue (No. 46, September 2002) of the FTP Newsletter lessons learned about community forestry by FTPP.  Here is her list:

• Community forestry is clearly of global relevance.
• Community forestry is about an inclusive process that is grounded by people in their place.
• Community forestry looks different in different places.
• Community forestry provides opportunities for communities to build and strengthen their governance skills and capacity to influence policy.
• Community forestry is about responsibility taken by natural resource dependent communities for managing local natural resources sustainably and equitably.
• Community forestry is about mutual learning that opens opportunities for new roles and relationships.
• Community forestry also highlights primacy of place.
• Community forestry is about honoring diversity through an ethics of reciprocity.

Community forestry has not ended at FAO but funding is much reduced.  Under the new Programme on Participatory Forestry, the FAO Forestry Department has committed to increase social and economic equity and improve well-being through support of participatory forestry and sustainable management of forests and trees in marginal areas.  Not all regional centers have stopped their activities.  Some will continue with new sources of funding.

Additional information, including outcomes for the FTPP regional centers in Latin America, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Countries, South Asia, Francophone Africa, English-speaking Africa, and Europe can be found on their websites.  The addresses for these can be located on the central website: http://www.fao.org/forestry/  or in issues of the FTP Newsletter.  NACARCE no longer exists, but ISTF will continue to distribute its store of FAO community forestry publications to ISTF members upon member request.