The SmartWood Program of the Rainforest Alliance is conducting a forest management certification re-assessment of the Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal (FECOFUN). Based on the 5 year certification agreement between FECOFUN and SmartWood in 2005, this re-assessment is conducted in order to re-issue the certificate. This re-assessment is being undertaken in order to avoid the termination of the certificate due to passing of the 5 year certification validity in Feb 2010. The assessment is scheduled to take place from August 18 to September 4, 2009.
SmartWood is assessing the environmental, silvicultural and socioeconomic aspects of the forest management in accord with FSC and SmartWood policies for Forest Management. The standard used is the “Rainforest Alliance/SmartWood draft Interim FSC Standard for Assessing Forest Management in Nepal”. FECOFUN holds the FSC certification and has been working as a group resource manager of CFUGs certified pool from Dolakha and Bajhang districts of Nepal.
FECOFUN is a national federation of forest users, which advocates for community forest user group (CFUG) rights, locally, regionally, and nationally. There are over 14,000 CFUGs members, The CFUGs represent over 1 million hectares of forestland that contain over a million households - over 25% of Nepal’s total population. This comprises rural-based forest users and farmers – men, women, old, and young – from almost all of Nepal’s 75 districts.
FECOFUN is a democratically run organization. Its primary goal is to “promote self-confidence and self-dependence to forest user groups through equal participation of all in decision making”. The supreme body is the General Assembly. District member groups elect the General Assembly members. The number of members in a district determines the number of General Assembly members elected from that district (six maximum). The National Council is the second main body and its members are elected from each district, however, each district elects only two members regardless of the population of members in the district. These two bodies have representation from 50% men and 50% women. There are various other committees where members are elected to carry out the will of the General Assembly and National Council.
FECOFUN represent their CFUG members’ interests in governmental and non-governmental fora within Nepal. They provide members with a variety of educational, training and technical assistance services in sustainable forestry, conservation, governance, capacity building and economic development.
SmartWood is accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and this assessment process must follow procedures which have been approved by the FSC.
SmartWood seeks your input
As a part of the forest certification assessment process we invite stakeholders to offer comment and feedback on forest management. We welcome input, either public or confidential, in whatever form is easiest and most secure for you. Your input will be valuable at any stage of the assessment process, but we would prefer to receive your comments either prior to the assessment, during the assessment, so that we can take them into consideration in reaching a certification decision by 31st January 2010. Your options for communicating your observations to us are as follows.
- Meet with a SmartWood assessment team member during or shortly after the fieldwork.
- Call and give comments to Indu Bikal Sapkota, the SmartWood staff person responsible for coordinating this certification assessment from Asia Pacific Regional Office. If Indu Bikal Sapkota ([email protected]) is not in the office, please give your comments to Iwan K. Permadi ([email protected]).
- Submit written comments by mail, FAX or email to Indu Bikal Sapkota. Unless you request otherwise, these comments will be kept confidential and are solely for the purposes of assessing the FECOFUN.
Stakeholders who may wish to dispute any aspect of the forest certification process or decision can access SmartWood's dispute resolution procedures at www.smartwood.org, Contacting SmartWood:
Asia Pacific Regional Office (APRO)
Rainforest Alliance, SmartWood Program
Jl. Ciung Wanara No. 1X
Ronon, Denpasar, Bali 80225
Indonesia
Tel: 62-361-224-356
Fax: 62-361-235-875
E-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.rainforest-alliance.org
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