This document contains several policy recommendations for improving livelihoods linked to sustainable forest protection and development. The primary policy beneficiaries are local citizens, households, and communities, as well as ethnic minority communities, who are allocated or leased forests or forest environments and contracted for forest protection, and whose livelihood depends on forests, especially natural forests. The paper seeks to clarify the nature and reality of linking “livelihood assets” to “forest assets”, and to provide data on and analysis of domestic and international experiences on linking livelihoods to forest protection and development. On this basis, the paper poses the challenge of “linking livelihoods to forest protection and development” and proposes a policy-based solution. Policy recommendations are expected to meet the requirements of the reality, and to be an opportunity to realize the Forestry Law in order to achieve the desired balance between sustaining income from forests for the people and community and maintaining and improving the quality and value of these same forests.

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