During June 1-5 2021, IFSA delegates participated in Forest Harvest: Community-Based Non-Timber Forest Product Enterprises (CBNE) Forum. This event highlighted the importance of different aspects of forestry including the forest itself, the contributors to the health of the forest and the benefits that we obtain from the forests. There were over 300 registered participants from different countries and backgrounds, including NGOs, researchers, communities, students and entrepreneurs.

Informative topics were raised during the roundtable discussion, including indigenous knowledge and women rights, stakeholders and strategies. The Coaching Clinic aimed to provide some useful perspectives to help build CBNEs’ capacity. During the CBNE in times of Change & COVID session, the participants also shared their concerns and how they responded to this tough situation with their current resources. Besides, the forum showcased several small businesses on their marketplace platform with market community-manufactured NTFP products from across Asia.

On the closing day, Paula Mae Dagsi gave a short speech on behalf of IFSA and shared our gratitude for having this opportunity to learn from various experts and communities on the techniques, strategies, and things to consider when starting and managing an enterprise.

“We hope that the participants recognize the full worth of forests and fully understand forests, grasping their implications and being grateful for their multi-fold contributions to humanity.”
— Paula Mae Dagsi (Head of Capacity Development Commission, IFSA)

IFSA was an official co-organizer at the CBNE Forum, and there were several activities for IFSA members to get involved as part of the digital delegation or as volunteers in different functions.

Since diverse languages are used in different Asian countries, and not all of the communities are fluent in English, this forum required a big amount of effort to help the participants to get involved and understand the sessions. Therefore, IFSA delegates assisted the social media management by creating contents and posting reminders in CBNEs communication channels in order to improve communities’ access. In addition, the forum provided several Asian language interpretations, and we also helped with recording them to share with more interested people.

IFSA also supported the forum newsletter publication: The Forest Harvest Post. This newsletter included the summaries of the highlighted sessions, interviews and some inspiring quotes. To read our newsletter, please visit here.