WAY FORWARD (part one)

The first steps in creating a sustainable community forest are:

• for the interested citizens to form a steering committee amongst yourselves
• the steering committee should be kept gender neutral
• don’t make the committee too big, as you can always add to it as things progress’
• make it quite clear to the interested members that this is totally volunteer effort
• visit your Traditional Leaders, tell them about your plans, get them to join the cause
• do not be judgemental to the people using and abusing the forest
• you are doing this to find a sustainable solution to the problem of deforestation, not a confrontation with your fellow citizens
• there may be organizations already in place in the area that are doing community forests or similar work, so ask them to join our cause
• there is a form page above where you can download templates of forms for keeping records of meetings attendance and members’ names