THE CROSS-COUNTRY STUDY examined community-based coastal forest management and policies on how integrating coastal forest management with human settlement planning and local livelihoods needs can strengthen community resilience towards climate change impacts confounded with other global changes like land use-land cover change, biological invasion and loss of biodiversity and economic globalization and planetary changes like tsunami. The study sites, the Philippines, Myanmar, India and Japan are located in coastal areas vulnerable to typhoons in the Northwest Pacific or cyclones in the North Indian Ocean. Unlike a seawall which only has a protective function, the study found that in all study sites coastal forests not only protect local communities from floods, tides and storms but also provide a range of ecosystem services serving the interests of both local and global communities. It is also found that in all the study sites: 1) Forests have been long conserved and created around individual houses and the entire village as well for livelihood security; 2) Apart from embracing the protective function of forests, local communities have developed house architecture providing some protection from flooding and windstorm; 3) Forest belt and embankment are often integrated to check windstorms and flooding. The study recommends that coastal forest policymaking must take into account indigenous knowledge and local concerns along with scientific knowledge and global concerns for coastal forest management.