SCNL And EU-VPA-SU2 Complete Zonation And Participatory Land Use Plan In Tonglay Community Forest

Zoning the community forest for management units (commercial, conservation, and multiple-purpose)

The Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia (SCNL), and the Voluntary Partnership Agreement Support Unit 2 (VPA-SU2), on June 20-25, 2022 joined members of the Community Assembly (CAs), and the Community Forestry Department of FDA in Gbarpolu County for the zonation and Participatory Land Use Planning exercise. The planning exercise was required to complete the Community Forest Management Plan (CFMP) of Tonglay Community Forest.

The VPA Unit 2 was responsible to provide technical support to SCNL and the community for the preparation of the community forest management plan (CFMP).

James Mulbah, SCNL PAPFor Project Coordinator said when the exercise was completed, several community dwellers appreciated SCNL for the initiative. “During the planning exercise, the atmosphere was quite conducive, it was full of enthusiasm, and the community appreciated and thanked SCNL and partners for the initiative,” he said. As part of the implementation of the Gola-PAPFor Project, funded by the European Union, SCNL, FDA, and Tonglay Community, civil society organizations, are to work with the EU-funded VPA Unit 2 to carry out a sustainable pilot commercial logging in the Tonglay community forest.

On the basis of this, an inventory was conducted by the FDA along with the community members of Tonglay with Technical guidance from VPA Support Unit2 in the last two months and the results will help inform the Community Forest Management Plan development.

The objective of the [community forest zoning and land use planning] is to use results from the inventory and various community engagements to understand the current and future desired usages of the forest by the communities; to organize the forest into management units based on either multiple purpose use, conservation, and commercial zones through a participatory process, and to finalize the development of the Tonglay Community Forest Management Plan (CFMP).