Project News

February 21 to 25, 2012

As a part of Project Output 2 activities, a Community Forestry Extension Planning Workshop was conducted from 21st to 25th February 2012 at the Htuang Gyi Tan Community Forestry Extension Center and Nursery (CFECN) located in Pyar Pon Township.

This workshop was carried out in cooperation between JICA and RECOFTC (The Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific, the Center, located in Bangkok, Thailand）, and the workshop was facilitated by Mr. Ronnakorn Triraganon, a Senior Program Officer of RECOFTC. A total of 32 participants mainly consist of FD counterparts, Community Forestry User Groups (CFUGs) representatives from 6 project target villages and the JICA Expert team staff gathered at the workshop. It is also noteworthy to mention that apart from the project stakeholders, two CF extension staffs from Tanintharyi Nature Reserve Project implemented by FD in Tanintharyi Region also took part in the workshop.

This workshop was mainly carried out through group exercises such as group discussion/ group work and field visit. Basically, FD officers and CFUG members from the same township were organized into one group. The workshop has proceed in following process: 1) analyzing problems in their CF area; 2) identifying issues to be tackled; 3) selecting activities for identified issues; and 4) developing action plans.

Since this workshop was virtually the first attempt for the project to bring representatives of FD staff and CFUGs together at same group exercise, a kind of embarrassment and diffidence was observed among participants at the beginning of the workshop,. However, by the latter half of the workshop, active discussions have occurred among participants to consider countermeasures for problems and issues prevalent in their CF activities/ areas. At the last day of the workshop, each group developed their action plans for improving their CF management and extension interventions and shared their action plan with the other participants. After scrutinizing, the project is willing to assist the implementation of developed action plans for improving CF extension activities in more practical ways.

Group Discussion in the CF Extension Planning Workshop

Field Visit at Nearby Village of the Workshop