This project aimed to enhance the capacity of household agroforestry systems and community forests to generate livelihoods and food security in the mid-hills region of Nepal. Nepal is the 17th poorest country in the world; 41% of the population are under-nourished and 30 of its 75 districts are food insecure. 66% of the population live off a combination of agriculture and forest products.

This project focused on interaction between people and forests and investigated how forest can sustain livelihoods and improve food security. 80% of Papua New Guineans live in rural areas and they depend heavily on their forests. Forests cover 63% of Papua New Guinea, and 97% of these forests are held in customary land ownership. Communities own most land and forests, so community forestry offers villagers a way of managing or developing these assets.

The “Agroforestry for Livelihoods of Smallholder Farmers in Northwest Vietnam” (AFLi) was a five-year project (2011-2016). The project’s aim was to improve the performance of smallholder farming systems in northwest Vietnam through agroforestry. It sought to increase the productivity of associated crop and livestock systems, leading to more diverse and sustainable production systems and better income from tree products.

This project aimed to make the value chain of planted wood in the Lao PDR more efficient. This improved both the international competitiveness of Lao wood industries and the livelihoods of farmers and processing workers. Laos has an emerging forest plantation industry. The timber industry has rapidly grown over the past three decades, based on both smallholder and corporate growers. The Lao PDR government envisages a substantial forest plantation estate, with 500,000 hectares of tree plantations by 2020.

The furniture industry is one of the 'big four' Indonesian pillars for export (along with rubber, palm oil, and footwear). The industry relies heavily on timber as its raw material, with an annual requirement of up to 7.5 million cubic metres. Wood species used as raw material for furniture (mainly teak and mahogany) come from natural forest and plantation/community forests. Jepara in Java is particularly known for its crafted wooden furniture, and the industry there involves 15,000 companies, mostly small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

Fostering enterprise-driven transformation and increased production and profitability of smallholder cocoa in East Sepik, Madang, New Ireland and Chimbu Provinces.

Enhancing forest management practices in community forests and private land to improve livelihoods, social equity and environmental impacts.

Native sandalwood (Santalum yasi) is an important forest product throughout its natural range in Fiji and Tonga. This project aimed at establishing the foundation for conservation and domestication of native sandalwood. 

Increasing the accessibility of new and current technology and encouraging a wider smallholder adoption of Canarium, Sandalwood, and Whitewood in Vanuatu.

Improving rural livelihoods through family-focused community reforestation and agroforestry in Papua New Guinea.

Supporting the development of innovative wood-processing industries to enhance markets for planted timber resources within Lao PDR and Australia.

This Small Research Activity (SRA) aimed to develop DNA-based legality verification and chain of custody systems for teak in Laos, Indonesia, Solomon Islands and PNG, where ACIAR has teak projects. In Myanmar and Thailand, it made sure the teak DNA database represents the SE Asian natural forest and plantations from which teak is harvested.

This project aimed to identify how commercial forestry can increase the incomes of smallholders and scale out the broader benefits of commercial forestry to local communities and industries.  Millions of small-scale farmers in Indonesia cultivate trees. However, most smallholders fail to realise the full commercial potential of the forests they manage or the trees they plant – leading to supplies of poor-quality wood to the industry. 

This project is expanding markets and strengthening capacity amongst smallholder and small-scale entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large-scale processors.

Improving economic, social and environmental outcomes for smallholders in the Pacific Islands.

Value-added wood processing methods using forest resources have been created through this ACIAR project in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Opportunities for economic growth, employment, and increased value-added processing of harvested logs, will greatly improve national and local markets.  More than 60% of PNG’s total land mass is forested and owned by traditional landowners. Closed forest in PNG covers 29 million ha, of which 10 million ha have been allocated by the PNG Government under timber permits for commercial development. 

The project aimed to make community and smallholder forestry in the Solomon Islands more profitable through wider application of high value agroforestry and improved management of secondary forests. Community and smallholder forestry could make many rural communities in the Solomon Islands economically secure, but 8-10,000 hectares of smallholder plantations need thinning to the final stocking rate to produce high value timber, and infrastructure is often inadequate to get the timber to market.

The project aimed to encourage investment in planted timber resources in Vanuatu through better management and use of whitewood-based plantation and agroforestry systems. Whitewood is a native timber species in Vanuatu that was previously harvested from natural stands and recently has been grown in plantations and woodlots. To offset the funds expended on large volumes of imported pine, a whitewood plantation industry is being encouraged to develop.

Teak produces a high-value timber that is in strong demand both nationally and internationally. When combined with smallholder farming systems teak can provide substantial economic benefits. This project aimed to improve smallholder livelihoods in the upland regions of northern Laos to enable the better understanding of the economic, social and environmental benefits of teak-based agroforestry systems.

This project aimed to develop and improve integrated timber and non-timber forest production systems in Indonesia, enhance value chains and marketing strategies, improve policy frameworks, and expand integrated timber and non-timber forest production systems. Planting trees and managing non-timber forest products has been an important part of Indonesian farmers' livelihoods' strategies for a long time. Smallholders could produce non-timber forest products. Trade volumes are small, but niche markets are likely to grow.

Terminalia catappa (Bislama Name – Natapoa), or tropical almond, has been identified as an excellent agroforestry tree species for Vanuatu and similar areas of the humid tropics and subtropics. Natapoa has been identified by the Vanuatu Department of Forests (DoF) as a priority plantation and reforestation species. Natapoa produces edible nuts, medicines and timber.

Vietnam has a large furniture production and export industry, with exports worth US$2.8 billion in 2008. Timber for this industry is to a large extent imported - at very substantial cost (US$854 million in 2009). Vietnam also has a very large plantation estate of acacias (300-400 k ha) and eucalypts (500 k ha).

This project was designed to strengthen the tree improvement capability of Vietnamese Academy of Forest Sciences (VAFS) through increasing sophistication in both strategies and technologies. It built on a substantial body of work in Vietnam in the breeding of acacia species and hybrids, which enhanced the production of high-value germplasm required to meet the Government of Vietnam's objectives for an expanded plantation estate for sawlog and fibre production.

Improving rural livelihoods through forest landscape restoration in the Philippines.

This project aimed to develop an Extension Management System (EMS) and guidelines for implementing a newly mandated set of comprehensive extension interventions. The agricultural sector of Lao PDR is undergoing rapid change, particularly in relation to increasing private sector investment, and this is placing new demands on agriculture extension. This has led to the creation of a new Department of Agriculture Extension and Cooperatives (DAEC) that will support districts and provinces to provide effective extension services.