Sustainable resource management must be carefully planned when setting up community-based enterprise projects, particularly when these involve natural capital. The Participatory Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Resource Management Training offers an approach through which participants can learn how to develop enterprise projects that are not only sustainable but also in harmony with local communities’ culture as well as the overall well-being of their forest ecosystem.

The six-day course provides participants with a practical step-by-step guide for community organizers to assist their communities in ensuring that forest resources, particularly NTFPs, are used and managed sustainably. This will be done through a mix of presentations, case studies and structured learning exercises. Participants will learn by relating to their own experiences as part of the learning approaches and tools applied in this course, along with field visits and interactions with the facilitators and community members.
The training will be held in the province of Palawan, Philippines, home to approximately 57 ethno linguistic groups with three different indigenous peoples: the Tagbanua, Palawan and Batak. The training will be hosted by the Palawan indigenous people of Brooke’s Point, who continue to manage their forest resources traditionally to this day. They also have decades of enterprise development experience with NTFPs such as resin, seeds and agroforest products. Gathering of NTFPs such as resin, honey, rattan, medicinal plants, buri, bamboo and vines is an important economic and cultural activity for them. Participants will have the opportunity to interact with indigenous communities with long experience in sustainably managing their forests and their NTFP enterprises.