Forests for People

[

] 225

Tropical forests for local people

Steven Johnson, Communications Unit, International Tropical Timber Organization

he International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO)

has funded over 1,000 projects and activities contributing

to its mandate to promote sustainable forest management

(SFM) in the tropics over the Organization’s 25-year history.

These projects span a range of themes and topics relevant to

SFM. One of the most important areas of ITTO’s work, and

one of the most relevant to the International Year of Forests,

2011 theme of Forests for People, is its efforts to involve local

communities in SFM.

Forests are particularly important resources for the rural poor in

tropical countries, with over 800 million people living in forests

and woodlands in the tropics.

Forest communities include indig-

enous peoples and other local groups which have been living in

forest areas for significant periods, as well as more recent settlers or

immigrants. Many of the very poor are hunting or gathering tribes,

landless people living around forests and landless forest workers.

In addition to improving livelihoods by providing a subsistence

safety net, including food, shelter and fuelwood, the tropical forests

also provide communities and smallholders with a source of cash

income, a capital asset, a source of employment and an alternative

health-care system based on forest plants. More needs to be done

to improve the livelihood of forest-dependent people when they are

interested in moving from subsistence livelihoods towards market-

based activities. In many tropical zones, most local community cash

income from forests comes from collection and commercialization

of non-timber forest products such as bamboo, rattan, bushmeat,

wild medicinal and aromatic plants and forest fruits. The employ-

ment impact of these activities in the tropical rural areas is measured

in millions in both the informal and formal sectors, but reliable

estimates are lacking. However, due to poverty and difficult access,

many forest communities are living in conditions in which even the

most minimum standards for education, health, sanitation, potable

water, infrastructure and employment cannot be met.

Indigenous groups and communities own or are entitled to the

use of about 25 per cent of the forests in developing countries.

According to a recent assessment,

the forest area owned by commu-

nities and indigenous people in the ITTO developing member

countries

in 2008 was about 332 million hectares. This was about

51 million hectares (18 per cent) more than six years earlier,

demonstrating a strong trend to transfer formal ownership to forest

communities. However, there are various countries where commu-

nity forestry is not yet practised at all, or is still in the initial stages.

Community forests have existed for centuries and represent one

of the main forms of forest ownership. For instance, in Guatemala,

Mexico and Papua New Guinea, community ownership of forest

land has been the dominant tenure form for decades. More recently,

the Governments of Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia,

Ecuador, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, India, Peru, Thailand and

Venezuela have revised their policies and legislation

for this purpose, some of them with ITTO assistance.

In addition to transferring or recognizing ownership

rights, various other arrangements are being applied in

the devolution of management or use rights to local

communities and their members.

The process is not, however, as simple as granting

communities title over forest areas, since this is usually

not sufficient to ensure SFM and the development of

community forest enterprises (CFEs). In general, forest

communities are poorly equipped to manage their forests

sustainably and to generate value through timber produc-

tion and various other benefits. One reason for this is that

the forest areas transferred to communities have often

been degraded lands with limited development potential

and a lack of investment in rehabilitation, which seriously

limits their role as a livelihood source for local people who

are in need of immediate tangible benefits.

In spite of the difficulties, community forest manage-

ment and enterprises represent a huge opportunity for

contributing to national development goals through

poverty reduction, sustainable socio-economic devel-

opment and environmental conservation in rural areas.

It has become clear that, given the right conditions and

incentives, communities can govern and manage forests

sustainably for a variety of objectives, and restore degraded

landscapes and ecosystems.

However, improvement is

generally needed in managing natural, human, financial,

physical and social assets by communities.

In order to address continued high poverty levels

in tropical countries due partly to the inadequate

capacity of indigenous peoples and forest communi-

ties to manage their forests and develop community

forest enterprises on a sustainable basis, in 2009 ITTO

established a Community Forest Management and

Enterprises (CFME) Thematic Programme.

Some of

the prominent causes of poverty and unsustainable

management of community forest resources are:

• Lack of clear land tenure and resource rights and

inappropriate legal and policy frameworks

• Poor organization of forest communities and limited

capacity among CFEs due lack of technical, business

and managerial skills

• Weak competitiveness in CFEs.

Land tenure is often insecure and resource rights have

not been clarified which is a major constraint for engag-

ing communities in such long-term endeavours as SFM.

Insecurity discourages sustainable practices in forest