Through­out the Caribbean, lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties are ad­dress­ing pover­ty by man­ag­ing and con­serv­ing forests in part­ner­ship with gov­ern­ment. They recog­nise for­est ecosys­tems as es­sen­tial for the well be­ing of our peo­ple and our com­mu­ni­ties. High on the in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al agen­das is cli­mate change and its twin, pro­tec­tion of forests. The Caribbean is al­ready feel­ing the ef­fects of cli­mate change on our economies and ecosys­tems. Par­tic­i­pants to the re­gion­al con­fer­ence–Forests for Peo­ple, Peo­ple for Forests, held on May 4-6 in Trinidad–dis­cussed the im­pacts of cli­mate change on our forests and the liveli­hoods of the rur­al poor, and ex­plored the man­age­ment of forests for mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion to cli­mate change. How will pro­ject­ed cli­mat­ic changes im­pact on for­est goods and ser­vices and what chal­lenges do we face in en­cour­ag­ing the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry man­age­ment of our forests?

Stim­u­lat­ing ideas emerged on how com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions can part­ner with gov­ern­ment agen­cies to man­age forests, how can we build na­tion­al mul­ti-stake­hold­er fo­rums for de­ci­sion-mak­ing on for­est man­age­ment, new ap­proach­es be­ing used to man­age forests, the eco­nom­ic val­ue of forests, and more con­tentious, should peo­ple pay for us­ing forests? The con­fer­ence was host­ed by the Caribbean Nat­ur­al Re­sources In­sti­tute (CA­NARI), co-fund­ed by the Food and Agri­cul­tur­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FAO) Na­tion­al For­est Pro­gramme Fa­cil­i­ty and the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion (EC) Pro­gramme on Trop­i­cal Forests. By fund­ing this con­fer­ence, both the Eu­ro­pean Union and the FAO un­der­scored their com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing both en­vi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion and pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion through the de­vel­op­ment of sus­tain­able for­est based liveli­hoods. Speak­ing at the con­fer­ence open­ing, Kathrin Ren­ner act­ing Charg� d' Af­faires of the Del­e­ga­tion of the Eu­ro­pean Union to Trinidad and To­ba­go, com­ment­ed that while Eu­rope has seen de­struc­tion of forests through­out its his­to­ry, to­day EU mem­bers are com­mit­ted to re­for­esta­tion and oth­er en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions.

She con­tin­ued: "There is some­times a mis­con­cep­tion that en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion un­der­mines eco­nom­ic growth but the truth is the op­po­site: It is en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion that un­der­mines prospects of both short and long-term de­vel­op­ment. On­ly when the en­vi­ron­men­tal di­men­sion is ful­ly tak­en in­to ac­count can we ob­tain the ul­ti­mate goal of last­ing pover­ty re­duc­tion and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment." "The pa­per is use­less with­out us," said Phillip Thomp­son, Project Man­ag­er of a com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tion called the Buff Bay Lo­cal For­est Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee in Ja­maica, as he re­ferred to poli­cies and prac­tices for par­tic­i­pa­to­ry for­est man­age­ment. His or­gan­i­sa­tion has been work­ing with the Forestry De­part­ment in Ja­maica more than ten years.

Par­tic­i­pants at the con­fer­ence en­dorsed en­gag­ing lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties in par­tic­i­pa­to­ry for­est man­age­ment and gave the fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for how this should be done:

�2 Rur­al com­mu­ni­ties should be in­volved in man­ag­ing forests and this pro­vides them with im­por­tant liveli­hood ben­e­fits.

�2 Specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ing the poor­est peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ty forestry ini­tia­tives is crit­i­cal oth­er­wise they can be left out or even hurt.

�2 Build­ing ca­pac­i­ty in lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties to be able to ef­fec­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in for­est man­age­ment and ne­go­ti­ate their own po­si­tions takes time and re­sources (es­pe­cial­ly with re­spect to cli­mate change).

Over 80 par­tic­i­pants at­tend­ed the con­fer­ence from 12 coun­tries across the Caribbean–Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Grena­da, Haiti, Ja­maica, Montser­rat, Puer­to Ri­co, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Saint Lu­cia, St Vin­cent, and St Kitts and Nevis. Peo­ple came from gov­ern­ment agen­cies, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, re­gion­al tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance agen­cies, uni­ver­si­ties, and donor agen­cies. This three-day con­fer­ence in­clud­ed one day of field trips to five sites across Trinidad.

Par­tic­i­pants vis­it­ed the Fondes Aman­des Re­for­esta­tion Project in St Ann's and work be­ing done by Na­ture Seek­ers in Matu­ra, both com­mu­ni­ty-based ini­tia­tives that are help­ing to con­serve forests and im­prove the liveli­hoods of peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ties. Pri­vate forestry ef­forts in cen­tral Trinidad be­ing im­ple­ment­ed in part­ner­ship with the Forestry Di­vi­sion were al­so seen. A trip to the Nar­i­va Swamp fo­cused on how lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties are be­ing en­gaged by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, through a grant from the Green Fund, to re­for­est parts of the Nar­i­va Swamp as a pi­lot cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion project. An­oth­er group vis­it­ed a per­ma­cul­ture (per­ma­nent agri­cul­ture) demon­stra­tion farm in Freeport be­ing run by Wa Sama­ki Ecosys­tems.