From 10 to 11 September 2007, 65 participants from eight countries met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to share experiences and plan future directions for sustainable forest management (SFM) in East and Southeast Asia. In the past five years, the EC UNDP Small Grants Programme for Operations to Promote Tropical Forests (SGP PTF) has been working with rural, forest-dependent communities, primarily Indigenous people, to improve incomes, protect forests and move towards sustainable forms of production.

Malaysia's policy commitments and progress in both poverty eradication and sustainable development are clear. As it celebrates 50 years since the formation of the Federation of Malaya, the Government's Ninth Malaysia Plan clearly enunciates poverty eradication as an achievable policy goal, while Malaysia's commitment to protecting forests and biodiversity have been manifest since the Seventh Malaysia Plan.  These twin goals are at the heart of the SGP PTF programme, in Malaysia and across the region.

In his opening remarks, UNDP Resident Representative Dr Richard Leete noted that, “On the ground, the programme has inter alia developed ecotourism sites in four states in Malaysia. It has helped conserve the world’s largest flower in Ulu Geroh in Perak. It has provided livelihood opportunities for Rungus women in small villages throughout Sabah. And it has helped create food security for the Penan of Sarawak.”

Also speaking at the launch, Professor Datuk Hood Mohd Salleh drew attention to the success of Malaysia's SGP PTF projects in helping to protect and promote traditional knowledge.  “ In Kudat, for example, the grantees are trying to re-introduce traditional knowledge of how to spin cotton into thread and making traditional costumes using traditional methods.”

Celebrity 'Heroes of the Forest', Joanna Bessey and Na'a Murad spoke at the opening ceremony. Ms Bessey stressed the role of the project in helping to eradicate poverty among the poorest communities in Malaysia, while recognizing and strengthening the role of indigenous people in forest management.

Na'a emphasized the importance of community participation.  The model used by the SGP PTF shows that community participation must be the driving force in forest management, which can be replicated to deal with a range of issues, from river basin management to the protection of endangered species.

Through bottom-up, participatory, community driven forms of sustainable forest management, the project has seen concrete progress made across the region in two key areas:

a. Poverty reduction. Communities working together have identified projects from eco-tourism initiatives to reforestation, which have helped improve quality of life. This could be through greater protection for water catchments, greater protection for traditional food sources threatened by deforestation or decreasing the cost of inputs for handicrafts and other income-generating products.

b.  Environmental protection through sustainable development. By moving away from centralized, high cost methods of forest protection, and working with communities to help them protect forests while maintaining and increasing livelihoods, states are able to sustainably manage forests. This win-win situation directly benefits both the communities and the authorities, working together to greater protection for the environment.

Working together with rural and indigenous communities, the SGP PTF projects have made a positive impact on people who are often at the margins of mainstream development. The UNDP is confident that, being based in the community, these projects will continue to strengthen and develop, especially given the help of partners from Government, the private sector and civil society.

News of the event was covered by Bernama, the  People's Online Daily (China) and Traxx FM.