Made possible through a grant by Forest Foundation Philippines, the Community and Forest-based Social Enterprise Development Project (CFSED) seeks to promote environmental sustainability in Forest Foundation Philippines’ focal areas through the propagation of non-destructive forest-based social enterprises. The goal is to tie economic progress together with the preservation of the natural ecosystem. By creating and supporting successful social enterprises that uplift members out of subsistence or poverty, the project hopes that local communities will have greater incentives to maintain and protect their surroundings.

Through the relevant components of this project, Bayan Academy intends to provide the Palawan and Samar provincial government units with research and capacity building interventions so it can strategically contribute to the sustainability of the project’s overarching goal – a strong social enterprise sector in their provinces that is mindful of the sustainability of the province’s forest-based resources. In the long-run, the empowerment of the said provincial government units should go a long way towards creating an environment that is conducive to the success of forest-based enterprises.

To replicate these interventions to a wider beneficiary base, the research and consultancy components of CFSED aim to empower the critical networks of the provinces for social enterprise development by catalyzing a strategic and integrated program that can be spearheaded by the most critical development stakeholder in the mentioned provinces, their provincial government units. This necessarily involves setting a research-based strategic direction for both the Palawan and Samar local government units (LGUs) with regard to supporting and empowering forest-based social enterprises