In China a substantial plantation industry, including 5.4 M ha of eucalypts and up to 50,000 ha of acacias, has been built on a foundation of R&D and germplasm acquisition for exotic eucalypt and acacia species over the past 40 years. From the 1980s through to the early 2000s a suite of Chinese-Australian collaborative R&D projects made major contributions to domestication, genetic improvement, silviculture and other aspects of plantation eucalypts and acacias in southern China. Even today, germplasm derived from earlier projects still provides the majority of planting stock deployed in China's current eucalypt plantations. For eucalypts, improvements in plantation productivities have been achieved through solid, well managed R&D programs. For acacias, despite work done in past decades to develop breeding populations and production capacities for improved seeds, genetic resources of acacias in China have deteriorated greatly in recent years. Factors affecting domestication and genetic improvement of both genera in China are reviewed in this report along with the research undertaken for both genera over the past 40 years.

As scientists strive to make nature's value visible, a large portion of forests and wild biodiversity known as non-wood forest products (NWFPs) continues to remain largely invisible and unaccounted for. At the core of the problem is wide disaccord over what is a NWFP (and correlate terms), a debate which has been running in circles for nearly three decades. This paper reviews existing terms and definitions, with the aim of improving forest statistics and the visibility of NWFPs. The paper starts by (1) clarifying boundaries between agricultural and forest products, so forest products currently under agriculture can be “reclaimed”; (2) drawing on lessons from fisheries to distinguish between wild and farmed products, and associated activities; (3) moving beyond product towards activity classifications to capture gathering that may not be accounted for under crops or forest products because it takes place across landscapes and outside of these sectoral boundaries.

Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is a key institutional tool in meeting social safeguards. Its implementation ensures respect of the local people's rights in an intervention. This paper presents a case of FPIC implementation at a REDD+ pilot site. Data were obtained through key informant interviews and focus group discussions with proponents and village members of the Lindi REDD+ project. Findings indicate that the inclusive approach to FPIC by taking the consultations to the hamlet level did not deliver a flawless process. The consent decision was reached by a majority vote, not consensus. There was some dissent, prompting the early establishment of project implementation committees. Consent was obtained, though it was not absolutely free, prior and informed. Future REDD+ projects should consider having FPIC as an independent and earlier process, separate from the main implementation of the project in order to uphold local peoples' rights in a less anxious process.

Four tree plantation models implemented in Lao PDR and a hypothetical model were compared in terms of the projected economic benefits and those realised by participating rural households, and households' attitudes to further plantation expansion. Models comprised two forms of land-sharing plantation concessions, and contract and independent tree growing. Benefits and costs over the plantation cycle were used to calculate net present values. Tree plantations contributed most to household livelihoods when companies engaged in a participatory land use planning process, where opportunities for household labour were greatest, and where plantation models allowed for intercropping by households. In contrast, where contracts were not honoured, crops cannot be grown jointly, or labour opportunities are limited, returns were not competitive with traditional swidden agriculture. Households were generally open to expansion of more beneficial models. These results suggest a set of principles for developing locally appropriate and beneficial tree plantation systems in Lao PDR.

Indonesia is a main tropical timber-producing country and is a leader in implementing Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreements (FLEGT-VPA) with the European Union (EU). In 2015, as a part of the FLEGT-VPA process, the government began a timber legality assurance system called Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK), which is mandatory for all timber product businesses. Since November 2016, Indonesia has issued FLEGT licenses for timber products exported to the EU. This study shows that the SVLK scheme has added value for the public in controlling timber legality, eradicating illegal logging and illegal timber trading, enhancing sustainable forest management and contributing to legal timber trading. The scheme also has added value in providing legal certainty for businesses. However, it contributes less to product marketing and its use as a standard to assess sustainable forest management needs to be evaluated.

Deforestation and forest degradation due to unsustainable forest products harvesting and encroachment has adverse socio-ecological impacts in the Southern part of Nepal, the Terai. Urbanization and migration from the hill region is increasing the demand for forest products. Despite the communities' involvement in forest management, the gap between demand and supply of forest products remains huge. In this context, growing trees outside the forests particularly in public and institutional land could be an appropriate strategy both to reduce the pressure on natural forests and bridge the demand and supply gap of forest products. This study assesses how and to what extent Trees Outside Forests addresses these issues. Data were collected through focus group discussion, key informant interview and household survey. The results suggest that Tree Outside Forests have provided access to forest products, improved institutional capacity and increased income of local communities. However, insecure land tenure and unclear legal provisions are drawbacks of growing trees in public lands.

Kenya is keen on realizing equity between the state and local communities participating in sustainable forest management. Hence, prominence is accorded to Forest Management Agreements (FMAs) under the Participatory Forest Management (PFM) framework. However, there is a scarcity of equity lessons from FMAs implemented so far by the state and Community Forest Associations (CFAs). This paper addresses this gap by exploring two FMAs for procedural and distributive equity effects by comparing the processes of recognition, income, and cost-sharing as well as challenges experienced by the state and CFAs to determine whether FMA implementation was yielding equity outcomes or not. Using literature review and 19 key informant interviews, results from Gathiuru and Karima forests substantiate that FMA is a reasonably robust, multi-objective-win-win tool that promotes equity in PFM. However, the implementation process has been slow. There is a need for more capacity building of CFA members, establishing an inventory-based NTFPs utilization system, and complementing the current PFM framework with explicit provisions for Corporate Social Responsibility.

Wild tree resources are known to play an important role in local stakeholders' livelihoods particularly in the food and nutrition security of people living in semi-arid sub-Saharan Africa. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, this article examines the relative importance of the contributions of tree resources to food and nutrition security for rural households, while considering alternative causal pathways. The main conclusions of the review are that most studies provide useful evidence on specific contributions of tree products to food and nutritional security, and for whom. However, detailed data on the actual contribution of tree products are still lacking. In addition, we argue that the concept of access as a pillar of food security is not sophisticated enough to understand the landscape dynamics and the socio-economic relations at the nexus of food security and rights of access. Links are needed to better understand the underlying processes in the definition of each stakeholder's rights of access to tree resources in a context of rapidly changing landscapes, and how income generated by tree resources contributes to food and nutrition security. An approach to food security based on rights of access would advance our understanding of their use and tackle the root causes of food deficiency based on different social groups. In light of current patterns of access to tree food for different stakeholders, including women and children, an intersectional approach that accounts for age, gender, ethnicity and wealth would benefit food security research by a more targeted and discerning approach to existing rights of access and to the roles of different community members.

Decentralised forest management approaches are ostensibly designed to increase community involvement in forest management, yet have had mixed success in practice. We present a comparative study across multiple countries in Eastern Africa of how far decentralised forest policies are designed to achieve devolution. We adopt the decentralisation framework developed by Agrawal and Ribot to explore whether, and how, devolution is specified in Tanzanian, Kenyan, Ugandan, Malawian and Ethiopian forest policies. We also compare them to the commitments of the Rio Declaration. In all five countries, the policies lack at least some of the critical elements required to achieve meaningful devolution, such as democratically elected, downwardly accountable local actors and equitable benefit sharing. Calling an approach ‘community’ or ‘participatory’, does not mean that it involves all residents: in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, policies allow a small group of people in the community to manage the forest reserve, potentially excluding marginalised groups, and hence limiting devolution. This may lead to elite capture, and effective privatisation of forests, enclosing previously de facto common pool resources. Therefore, even without flaws in implementation, these decentralisation policies are unlikely to achieve true devolution in the study countries.