This report reviews lessons learned from community forestry in Asia over the last three and a half decades. It argues that efforts to promote Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) can achieve greater impacts if they build upon relevant lessons learned from experiences in community forestry. A number of fey findings on community forestry are presented which focus on the areas of: empowerment of communities, governance and stakeholder engagement, benefits and incentives, capacity building, scaling up and sustainability. Recommendations for REDD are also given including that interventions need to focus on communities that have legally enforceable rights to their forests and on formalized community forestry groups that previously existed as self-identified groups with shared traditional tenure in informal systems.