24 November 2014: Participants from 17 producer groups across Bolivia participated in a Market Analysis and Training (MA&D) supported by the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF). In Pando, Bolivia, participants visited associations of Brazil nut collectors and rubber tappers in order to learn about successes and failures of collective businesses, with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the University of Pando signing an agreement to hold future trainings.

The MA&D training, which took place from 17-22 November 2014, is just one component of a more ambitious programme under Bolivia’s 2012 Framework Law of Mother Earth and Holistic Development for Living Well, which aims to provide a holistic solution to social development and forest protection, and support business models that challenge free market models.

For example, as an alternative to REDD+, Bolivia set up the Plurinational Mother Earth Authority, which oversees three climate change mechanisms, including a joint mitigation and adaptation mechanism (MCMA) that the FFF will support through assistance to producer representation in MCMA national and regional platforms and through the development of local forest farm business models to adapt to and mitigate climate change. The FFF will: support a national producer federation to broaden and accelerate community-level legal registration; and fund national and regional associations to help forest farm producer organizations develop and implement sustainable business plans to facilitate their representation in the MCMA.

The FFF is a partnership that was launched in September 2012 between FAO, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to promote sustainable forest and farm management. [FAO News] [IIED Blog Post]