In the Asia-Pacific region, millions of people live within or dwell near forests. For many of them, their wellbeing is dependent upon access to forest lands and forest resources, yet their customary rights and rights to basic human needs are often denied by national forest regulatory frameworks. This report brings together four studies that evaluate regulatory initiatives with implications for forest-dependent communities from a rights-based perspective. These are: The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 - India; Regulatory initiatives and selected outcomes of judicial processes in Malaysia; The Community Forest Act (2007) - Thailand; and The Indigenous People’s Rights Act (1997) - Philippines. Each study covers law making, content and implementation. A fundamental message from these reviews is that when progress has been made in legislating the rights of forest-dependent people to forest land and resources, time, flexibility, and resources are then needed for them to claim and effectively utilise these rights. Learning, capacity building and in some cases strengthening of local institutions is required before forest-dependent local communities can engage in an empowered manner in formal processes to claim their rights and to plan for utilising these rights.
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