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tive has allowed Model Forest experts from Canada to
put tools and methodologies in place that will improve
forest management in Argentina’s national network,
and provide an opening for further extension in the
Ibero-American Model Forest Network.
Lessons learned
A Model Forest directly addresses the very challenging
social aspect of the sustainability equation. It initi-
ates and sustains a robust exploration of the collective
demands that we place on our ecosystems, the trade-offs
that these demands involve, and options for designing
a sustainable future. Model Forests are about a shared
investment (human, financial, intellectual, political)
in finding effective, long-term solutions to shared
challenges. The approach also has its limitations. For
example, it cannot work in places where participants
are unwilling to listen openly to each other, where the
process is largely driven by a single organization, or
where persistent and significant funding challenges
exist. However, the overwhelming majority of Model
Forests have succeeded, and continue to do so.
Twenty years of experimenting with Model Forests has
taught us that delivery of SFM policy must be shared
with the people who will live with the results. Meaningful
engagement of local stakeholders is a prerequisite to
sustaining buy-in, momentum, direction and support,
and sustainable management of natural resources must
provide an economic dividend to local stakeholders.
We have also learned that national forest and other
resource-focused agencies are key enablers as well as
beneficiaries and partners, and that there is high value
in working at a large physical scale and across disci-
plines and administrative boundaries. Donors, managers
and policymakers need to increase their tolerance for
innovative approaches and recognize that building a
sustainable future is a long-term process, not a project.
The case studies in this chapter are linked through the
six Model Forest principles, which are flexible enough to
be adapted to almost any context and landscape. Lessons
learned are then shared through the IMFN and more
broadly to accelerate progress towards sustainability goals.
Model Forests demonstrate that small-scale solutions
to large national- or international-level concerns can
make a difference. Issues such as transnational resource
management, poverty alleviation and climate change
provide opportunity for increased collaboration among
IMFN members, as well as with other organizations with
similar goals.
Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of Canada’s
announcement of the IMFN at the 1992 UNCED
Summit. The message we carry forward as we look to
the next two decades is firmly rooted in a view that the
array of challenges Model Forests address are not devel-
oped or developing country issues; they are familiar in
all our landscapes. However, both the range of issues
considered and the options for addressing them are
substantially enriched through meaningful, broad-based
partnerships such as those found in Model Forests.
address the sustainability of watershed resources and allowed them
to express their own views and priorities.
In Samar, as elsewhere, stakeholders are motivated by the expecta-
tion that better management will lead to higher incomes and better
opportunities for their families and communities. In Samar, this
took the form of almaciga resin collection, coconut coir production
and rattan processing, while resource base improvement through
agroforestry and development of multi-purpose crops and ecotour-
ism activities motivated stakeholders to participate.
Sharing best practices internationally
Networking and knowledge sharing between sites is a key Model
Forest principle and motivator for joining the IMFN. Over the
years, Canada’s Model Forests have been particularly successful in
sharing experiences internationally. For example, Canada’s Prince
Albert Model Forest is collaborating with Chile’s Araucarias del Alto
Malleco Model Forest and Vilhelmina Model Forest in Sweden in the
IMFN’s first tri-continental agreement to share knowledge and experi-
ences between indigenous stakeholders. The Manitoba Model Forest
recently concluded a three-year project with the Reventazón Model
Forest, Costa Rica, where an ecotourism business was developed
in collaboration with the Cabécar indigenous people; and Canada’s
Lac-Saint-Jean Model Forest is working with carpenters in Dja et
Mpomo Model Forest, Cameroon, on establishing small enterprises
turning exotic wood residues into marketable products such as pens.
Since 2007, the Government of Canada, the Canadian Model Forest
Network and the Argentinean National Model Forest Network have
been working together to transfer Canadian expertise to Argentina
in the development of criteria and indicators (C&I) for SFM. A suite
of local level indicators based on Canada’s national C&I framework,
designed to monitor progress towards sustainability, was developed
in each of Canada’s Model Forests in the late 1990s to enable stake-
holders to track changes and trends in the condition of forests and
in the economic and social benefits we derive from them. This initia-
Pili tree, Ulot Watershed Model Forest, Philippines
Image: The International Model Forest Network Secretariat