FORESTS, PEOPLE AND
LIVELIHOODS
Entitlements to the world’s forestry
resources
Ton Dietz with Mirjam Ros-Tonen;
Kumasi July 7, 2010
Combining a livelihoods with an
eco-humanistic governance
perspective
Livelihood approach: basics-1
• Household level assets and income:
composition, seasonality, and life-time
dynamics
• Access to capitals: natural, physical,
economic, social-political and cultural-spiritual
• Intra-household and inter-household sharing
mechanism (cash, time, food, shelter, etc)
Livelihood approach: basics-2
• Forest-based livelihoods
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Timber (value chain)
NTFP (incl. gold mining, bushmeat, snails) (value chain)
(Casual and apprentice labour; forest employment salaries)
Tenure rent and fees, e.g. from eco-tourism
New ecosystems payments: PES, Carbon Credits, REDD
• Additional elements
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Agricultural income in cash and/or kind
Private and public sector employment
Social income
Remittances
The world’s forests
FAO Forest Resources Assessment 2010
World forest area: 4 billion ha = 31% of world land area = 0.6 ha/capita
1990-2000: Gross loss of forest cover: 16 mln. ha per annum;
Net loss: 8.3 mln ha per annum; gain 7.7 m. ha
2000-2010: Gross loss of forest cover: 13 mln ha/annum;
Net loss: 5.2 mln. ha; gain 7.8 mln. ha (FRA 2010)
Forest loss in Africa: 4 mln. ha per annum 2000-2005 (FRA 2005)
Situation in Ghana:
observations and worries- 1
• 22 million people = 16-20 million m3/yr wood
demand (30% timber; 70% woodfuel)
• 24 million ha of land of which 1.2 million ha
forest reserve, with 1-2 m3/yr/ha = <2 million
m3 sustainable supply
• Rest should come from non-forest reserves in
the country = 14 – 18 million m3/yr
Situation in Ghana:
observations and worries- 2
• Formally allowed industrial use of wood: 1
million m3, of which 80% exported and 20%
pledged for Ghanaian market = 200,000 m3
• Actual industrial/artisanal use for Ghanaian
demand: 2.9 – 4 million m3
• ‘Legal’ use: 5-8% only
• In High Forest Zone Forest Reserve 1.2
million ha. Annual deforestation: 75,000 ha
per annum???
• = 15 years left for complete deforestation
Situation in Ghana:
observations and worries- 3
• Expected: complete crash of the timber
industry within 10-15 years
• First: ever higher prices for domestic timber of
ever lower quality
• Then: timber industry cannot get supplies
anymore
• Finally: 90% of the workers in the sector will
loose their work and timber income
• Widespread poverty and
anger/disappointment
Soils
Biodiversity
As in MEA
Supporting
services
Water
Habitat
Climate regulation
Carbon sequestration
Nutrient cycling
Regulating
services
Flood control
Erosion control
Pollination
Disease regulation
Provisioning
services
Cultural
services
Fresh water
Timber
Non-timber forest products
Non-material benefits
Recreation and tourism
Functions of forests:
a slightly different, political-ecological, perspective
• Ecosystem functions: biodiversity, global
and regional hydro-cycles, protection
against soil wind and sea erosion, and
desertification control
• Livelihood functions: wood, NTFP,
tourism; source of raw materials for food,
energy, tools, medicines, and income in
cash and kind
• Macro-economic functions: source of
foreign exchange, tax money, rent, profit,
employment
• Political economic functions: source of
extraction, accumulation and externalising
problems elsewhere (migration; settlement)
• Identity functions: home to forest-based
communities/cultures; but also images to
feed aestetic values, spiritual feelings,
artistic expressions, pride and self esteem.
Forestry sector:
from hype to hype
NTFP
Timber certification
Payment for Environmental Services
Carbon credits
Biofuel
REDD: $$$$$???
…..
Impacts of globalisation
• Economic: Ever more local eco-dependent
livelihoods replaced by globally more
integrated livelihoods via value chains
relating producers and consumers in global
networks
• Communication: Ever more ‘imaging’ and
knowledge about what happens in the world’s
forests
• Political: Ever more tensions between local,
national and global entitlement claims on the
products and functions of forests
Three perspectives on entitlements
1
• The indigenous rights perspective:
local people with (age-) old rights are
caretakers/owners of the forest, using
their spiritual valuation tools and their
established governance arrangements
• Tools: indigenous peoples reserves with
or without exclusive rights of settlement
and ownership/use of forest resources
Three perspectives on entitlements
2
• The national development perspective:
• The national government has jurisdiction over
all national land, and hence also over all
forest land; it can use it for the nation’s
development, and for feeding the government
budget; it can give ownership rights to private
or public companies and to smallholders to
exploit the forest, with a variety of governance
arrangements (laws; practices) for
using/conserving the forest.
Three perspectives on entitlements
3
• The eco-humanistic global governance
perspective
• It regards the world’s forests (or at least part
of it) as the responsibility for humanity as a
whole, with an eco-preservation duty, and a
long-term commitment to conserving or even
restoring the world’s green heritage. This can
only be done through global governance, and
active ‘policing’.
The geopolitics of forest entitlements
1
• A very confused mixture of practices and
‘framings’:
• Is the world on its way to global forest
commons under a kind of global stewardship,
global trustlands, global eco-protectorates?
Forests as public global goods?
• Or in hybrid forms: actual care by NGOs, or
private eco-companies, but under a ‘zoning
arrangement’ of national states?
• Is this imperialism in an eco-guise?
The geopolitics of forest entitlements
2
• Increasing everywhere:
• Interesting mixture of the first and third
perspective: indigenous peoples supported
by global/foreign NGOs and (global) aid /
environmental bureaucracies (partnerships),
bypassing the national government, or forcing
them to accept zoning arrangements
restricting national sovereignty.
National states manoeuvring around
the local and global pressures
• In many cases: 3 zones:
• A) protected areas (global and/or national
regimes)
• B) co-management areas with local participation
by indigenous and/or settler communities; forms
of participatory democracies with access
regulation and revenue sharing
• C) areas of eco-exploitation, dominated by
corporate capital, with or without ecomanagement arrangements, legal and in practice.
Global or multi-scalar
governance arrangements?
• PES (Payment for Environmental Services) GHG
(GreenHouseGas) compensation, REDD (Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in
Developing Countries) and EU policies (FLEGT/VPA) give
interesting opportunities to experiment with new
governance arrangements:
• Global drivers (e.g. World Bank, UN-REDD programme, the Voluntary
Partnership Agreement with the EU to combat illegal logging)
• National implementation (e.g. REDD-readiness processes;
implementation of practices to combat illegal logging and chainsaw
lumbering)
• But: local stakeholder involvement, often assisted by global, national
and local NGOs: global and local pressure for stakeholder involvement
• Multi-scalar governance!
Be aware of the political
economy/ecology!
• The re-arrangement of (multi-scalar) natural resource
management gives many new opportunities for rentseeking and rent seekers
• New monetary values to forest services/functions
mean: new value-sharing mechanisms for forest tenure
• A ‘normal’ political process means: most of the rent will
go to a few political leaders, in command of the central
state.
• > Often: lack of transparency and lack of acknowledged
legitimacy
• > Many local attempts to bypass or block central rent
seeking (‘corruption’, ‘illegal practices’ and conflict).
More democratic sharing?
• Multi-scalar governance arrangements with
stakeholder involvement
= a political process of rent (re)distribution
• With agreed arrangements for rent distribution at
various levels of scale: individual villages (‘local
communities’), particular forest zones/districts
(Chief’s stools, District Assemblies, Forestry Dept.),
Regions, the central state, the AU? a global tax?
• And agreed collaborative forest management and
cost sharing in cash and kind
What does this mean for local
livelihoods?
• Individual compensation mechanisms? (in case
of blocked access or use rights?), e.g., like
monthly social security payments, or one-time
pay-off
• Local public compensation mechanisms (e.g.
public goods and services – village amenities,
via a trust fund, or via a local council/district
assembly)
• Who should be in charge? Chief? Local District
Assembly? Central government representative?
People’s committee?
Sharing forest revenues in
Ghana
• Current system
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10% stool
45% forest commission
20 % stool maintenance
20% District Assemblies
5% for communities
• Changes underway
– New plantations policy: 40% to tree growers
– Modified taungya system: income from crops
– National Expert Consultation on Timber Supply: advice on
improved incentive system for on-farm tree conservation
Needed
• Dedicated longitudinal research programme to
do independent studies about the actual forest
rent arrangements and their impact on:
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Individual and collective livelihoods ( and –options)
Governance arrangements and local democracy
The depth of ‘participatory stakeholder processes’
Conflict and conflict mitigation
Major governance challenges
• Inclusion of forest communities
• Tenure and access rights
• Transparent & accountable Forest
Management
• Equitable distribution of benefits
• Effective enforcement & sanctions
• Responsive & coordinated government
• Effective conflict management
• Control the drivers of deforestation
What are the risks of REDD and
other new financial mechanisms?
Risks of REDD and other payments for
forest services
– New ‘fence and fine’ approach
– Displacement of the poor
– Replacement of natural forests with tree
plantations
– Less pressure to cut emissions in the North
– Corruption & elite capture of benefits
– Lack of say & benefits for forest-dependent
people
– Disrespect of indigenous rights
Questions:
• Is Ghana REDDy for these governance
challenges?
• What role can/should KNUST and Tropenbos
Ghana play with regard to the:
• Central question: how to use old and new
forest resources in an equitable way,
– avoiding rent capture by elites,
– acknowledging the rights of local communities,
– and at the same time safeguarding the
sustainability of nature’s eco-services?
Thank you!