This brief summarizes progress made on REDD+ at the December 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, and discusses continuing challenges.

A single word can describe the history of forest management in the region: conflict. Too often this happens because local people are excluded from decision-making and the benefits of forest management. REDD+ is a proposed mechanism to make forests more valuable standing than destroyed.

Local communities and state forest actors, such as Protection Forest Management Boards (PFMBs), State Forest Companies (SFCs), play equally important roles in forest resource management. Yet local communities have limited legal rights.

Recognizing the important role that people living in and around forests play in forest management for poverty reduction and environmental sustainability, RECOFTC conducted a study for the ASEAN Social Forestry Network and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to provide a general