CFSG: The Community Forest Support Group

The Community Forest Support Group (CFSG) was established in 1993 through the collaborative efforts of the Social Research Unit at Chiang Mai University, various local communities and the Northern Development Foundation.

The Goals of the Community Forest Support Group are:

• To Support indigenous communities residing in watershed areas in their efforts to implement village-level environmental conservation projects and activities.
• To support grassroots networks of community forestry practitioners in their efforts to increase local participation in public policy decision-making processes affecting their communities.
• To provide forum for the exchange of ideas on community forestry issues through various media, including a bi-monthly news magazine, a weekly documentary television program, collections of scholarly articles, CDs of local musicians, and special events such as concerts and exhibitions.
• To educate children and youth groups on various conservation issues and to help them understand the ways of life of the watershed communities.
• To create opportunities for dialogue between city dwellers and indigenous people to promote understanding of the ways of life and conservation efforts of watershed communities.

The Community Forest Support Group operates under the Northern Development Foundation (NDF).
NDF supports village-based watershed and natural resources conservation and management through the strengthening of peoples’ organizations (PO) and PO networks, organizational and personal development of NGOs and NGO workers, and raising awareness of conservation issues in the broader community. We also focus on the need to analyze government natural resource management policy and to explore alternative development strategies to create an equitable and sustainable society. The emphasis of our work is to build the capacity of peoples’ organization networks to fully participate in the public policy decision-making processes affecting their communities.

The Community Forest Support Group ’s bi-monthly periodical San Jai Khon Rak Pa is central to our work in promoting dialogue and building understanding between urban and indigenous communities on environmental conservation issues. San Jai Khon Rak Pa has a circulation of 2,500 including CFSG members and various media outlets throughout Thailand. Articles are republished in the mainstream media with the goal of increasing public awareness of issues critical to indigenous communities’ survival.

The Community Forest Support Group organizes 10 study trips a year to villages implementing successful community forestry projects throughout Northern Thailand. These trips are aimed at educating mainstream Thai citizens from urban areas such as Bangkok and Chiang Mai about the lifestyle and culture of indigenous people and forest dwellers. The study trips are planned from Chiang Mai and are generally held over three days and two nights. It is a home stay based trip program with visitors living with a family for the two nights, thus giving villagers and city folks an opportunity to learn about one another’s culture, build friendships, and break down prevalent misconceptions and prejudices regarding indigenous peoples’ lifestyle and relationship to the forest.

The trips also serve to communicate to the wider public, as participants are encouraged to channel what they have learned into the popular media to promote public understanding of the issues facing indigenous communities. CFSG members frequently contribute articles to various newspapers and magazines including Feature Magazine, Open, Kwan Ruan, Sii Sun, Chee Wajit, Chala Su, A Day Weekly, Citylife, National Magazine, Matichon, Daily News, The Nation and The Bangkok Post.

In addition, the Community Forest Support Group also offers trainings on topics on which villagers have requested support. Such trainings have included, for example, communication training sessions for village leaders in the Mae Ping Watershed Network aimed at increasing communication between villagers and government officials, a Fund Management training for Village Leaders from the Northern Farmers Network aimed at enabling villages to manage community forestry funds and implementation plan at both the community and network levels, and a Design Workshop for female leaders in the Mae Ping Watershed Network aimed at educating the women on adapting their traditional textile designs to suit the market in the cities, thus generating income for themselves and their communities.

COMMUNISTA is the goods produced by CFSG (fundraising program), 50% of its profit will be used for awareness raising concerning community’s resource management.