I. First progress report (Feburuary 16, 2011):
Activities undertaken:
Launching capacity building through meetings, seminars, open forum, and study tours

Results of activities:
1. One committee with 15 members being established with confirmation from 150 members of target population
2. Confirmation and highlights of community problems and issues for formulation of action plan

Project Communication:
1.The project was being made more visible and understood monthly through community radio FM 95.50 MHz with representatives of the committee and youth group playing leading roles.
2. TVThai (Thai Broadcasting Services) visited the project and produced a documentary on sustainable land management during January 10-13, aired on 29 January 2011.

Experience and Lessons Learnt:
The project summed up lessons learnt and experience as follows:
1. Learning process for target population and leaders was of utmost important. For example, it was very hard and time-consuming to convince the self-sufficiency philosophy and sustainable community livelihood.
2. Modern technology if used properly was able to facilitate project activities i.e. providing quick data & information to target communities.
3. Success/accomplishment of community members/leaders on self ?reliance should be highlighted and replicated continually.
4. Increase of biological diversity should be based on participatory use and common benefits.

Project Expense:
The project reported the expense of THB: 86,100 out of the first disbursement of THB:246,883.35.

II. Monitoring Visit by NC/NSC (October 8, 2011):
Findings & Observation:
At the coordinating centre of the grantee in Baan (village) Thai Samakkhi, which was also shared by the community radio station, the community welfare fund , and the 84-year Jubilee Reforestation Project office, the visiting team was briefed about background of project location, targeted communities and undertaken activities and respective results. The brief on background of project location and communities offered an insight over the ?causes and effects? of a series of public development plans implemented in the location since the last five decades.

Project location is situated in a buffer zone next to the Thablarn National Park, one of the five protected areas collectively promulgated as the second world heritage in Thailand. Targeted population, 150 families in two villages, was composed of those community members who lived in then later were moved out of the park, community members whose cultivated lands were declared encroaching into the park area, and community members who were registered as landless and extremely poor. In order to strengthen co-management of the park, Community Organization Development Institute, a public organization and major stakeholder in community development, provided THB: 20,000/ family as a grant to build a home, the national park allocated about one-and-a-half acre of land /family to make a living and about 15 ha and a public area, and GEF SGP fund for building capacity and demonstrating conservation activities.

Further interacting through visiting some plots of project members, it was found that houses supported by CODI were being constructed with more or less the same progress, cultivated plots being re-vegetated, some with as many as 50 native species of nutritious value, others integrated with cash crop such as tapioca and paddies. Project members talked to seemed to have some capacity to explain what were being done.

The visiting team agreed that the project was in progress with proposed activities being carried out as planned, in spite of different extent of progress. With Capacity of project leaders and well received cooperation and supports from various stakeholders, including the management of Thablarn National Park, it is very interesting to see how this co-management of the buffer zone would produce more result and be a model for surrounding communities & other conflicting protected areas.

As the location was next to a back GEF SGP project, THA/02/18:Rehabilitation of Watershed of Upper Moon River by CBOs, which had seen its completing about 10 years ago, the visiting took an opportunity to witness a sustainable result of the project, i.e. a tract of degraded land once filled with grass and weedy plants, now being turned into a kind of forest.

III. Second progress report (November 10, 2011):
Activities undertaken:
1 Keeping on launching capacity building through meetings, seminars, open forum, and study tours
2.Demonstrating and putting into practice the built capacity(increasing biological diversity in project location)
3. Disseminating project results to wider audiences through network meeting and community radio
4. Conducting participatory evaluation

Results of activities:
1. Clearer line of responsibility of the committee and implementation plans
2. Project members gaining ideas and practice of successful communities which could be used as baseline
3. More native species being grown and thriving in plots of 100 families about 5,550 standing trees of 35 native species
4. Approximately 32 out of the targeted 56 ha of buffer zone being under management & protection
5. The project being equipped with signboards and youth groups ready to make project more visible and better understood

Project Communication:
The project was made more visible and understood continuously to the community radio.

Experience and Lessons Learnt:
In spite of no special issue during the reporting period, the project still felt that the promotion of tourism in Tambol Thai Samakkhi had been implemented without realizing the strategic direction.

Project Expense:
The project reported the accumulated expense of THB:490,060 out of the sum of first & second disbursement of THB: 490,061.87.

IV. Completion report (September 17, 2012):
Date of Participatory Evaluation( 17 July 2012):

Number of Beneficiaries/ Participating personnel:
Women: 120
Men: 90
Children: 20

Number of persons trained/ attending seminars, joining study tours:
Women: 185
Men: 170
Children: 30

Expense:
Amount received from SGP (3 disbursements): THB: 736,551.08
Total amount spent out of SGP budget: THB: 830,145
Balance: THB : (-93,593.92)
Amount authorized for the final payment: US$: 2,627.54
Amount of co-financing as follows: THB: 151,775 (in cash)
THB: 623,500 (in kind)

Activities undertaken:
1. Capacity building through meetings, seminars, open forum, and study tours (12 meetings, 2 open forums, one study tours and one training)
2. Demonstrating and putting into practice the built capacity (increasing biological diversity & rehabilitating community marginal forest and buffer zone)
3. Conducting participatory evaluation
4. Disseminating project results to wider audiences

Results and indicators:
1. Increased management capacity of project members witnessed by an established working group and network persistently managing natural resources in the community with community regulation under observation ( 120 persons)
2. Emergence of self-reliant network applying family database to launch activities in a continuous basis
3. Demarcated 100 plots of family forest , approximately 32 ha in total under management with thriving seven species of nutritious , medicinal, pigment and aromatic value ( 7,225 native trees of estimate growth rate of 70 %)
4. Approximately 56 ha of buffer zone being under protection within total length of 20 kilometers (12,000 native trees of 52 species)
5. More global environmental issues being disseminated through meetings and community radios resulting in evinced increased ?global environment awareness?

Project Communication:
Nothing special was reported.

Plans and Activities for Sustainability:
1. The established working group would cooperate with MWCG, community leaders to plan a community development process regarding social capital, natural resources and local environment protection.
2. MWCG would conduct monitoring & evaluation together with targeted population and provide technical assistance as required for formulating management plan for self-reliance.
3. Cooperation through yearly buffer zone rehabilitating activities would be kept on. Community traditional rites regarding watershed conservation would be blended in.
4. Local administrative organizations would be approached to play supporting roles (both financially and institutionally) on development of environmentally-friendly occupation for targeted population.
5. MWG would play a leading role in keeping records of forest use and impact of the use, especially on changing from mono-quick cash crop to integrated farming. These records were to be environmental reminders for targeted population.
6. Any success model in project location would be disseminated to wider communities.

Experience , Lessons Learnt , Problems and Issues:
Throughout project duration from September 2012 to August 2012, lessons learnt may be summarized as follows:

1. Creating participatory working process required mutual understanding , accepting diversity and limitation of all members.
2. Building technical capacity of targeted population would be on time and effective if data & information and technology were referred and applied.
3. Public policy to promote project location as a tourist spot resulting in local unregulated economic growth but without clear plan for conservation of land and water resources.
4. Acquired data & information were of utmost important for dialogues once public conflict occurred. The data & information were tools to explain to wider public on the nature of conflicts and their facts.