In 2005 the Operation Wallacea Trust was awarded a $1 million GEF grant supervised by the World Bank to establish strong protection for the Lambusango forests. The Trust team implementing this project is based in Bau Bau. There are a number of key elements to the management programme including a novel approach to managing the forests using a Forum of local people with the forestry powers from both national and regional governments devolved to this Forum. The idea is that the best people to manage an area are those who live closest to it and are most affected by the management decisions.

A Forest Crime Unit Lambusango (FCUL) has been formed. The FCUL consists of informants, response units and journalist teams and has conducted regular joint patrols with government investigators, forest rangers and journalists. Some illegal timber has been confiscated (about 35 m3 per month). There has however, been a lack of follow-up legal actions from the legal authorities (police and/or district attorney). The FCUL is also assisting legal authorities to enforce forestry laws in forest investigation posts. Monitoring on transport routes out of the forest has suggested that illegal logging may be declining. Based on data collection conducted in two forest products investigation posts by Lambusango Project staff who manned the posts in September 2005 and during October – December 2006, reduced by 73% over that period. Data from the comparison of satellite images between 2004 and 2006 suggests that clear felling of the forest has mostly stopped. 

At the mid-term of the project, the monitoring programmes are sufficient to assess 12 (63%) of the 19 performance criteria.  To improve this, additional surveys are planned for 2008. The Lambusango Project appears to be on target to achieve 5 of the 19 performance criteria.  These include levels of awareness about the forests in the wider community, forest cover, a decrease in selective logging, hunting and use of the forest as assessed from trails, no changes in bird communities and maintaining anoa populations.  11 of the performance criteria are data deficient and cannot be assessed either because additional surveys need to be completed (8) or because additional years of data are needed (3).  There are only 3 of the performance criteria that do not look like being achieved without a change in approach by the Lambusango Project and these are now being addressed. 

To overcome this problem the Operation Wallacea Trust has developed a new scheme called Wildlife Conservation Products where communities can receive Fair Trade equivalent prices for their commodities only if they have signed one of these conservation agreements. If there is evidence that village members are continuing to hunt or log then the scheme is suspended until the community can exert the necessary pressure to prevent this activity. However, the payment of prices significantly above market rates in these communities provides a strong positive incentive for ensuring 'their' forest is protected.