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FOREST-BASED POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

By Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen and K.F. Wiersum

The first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) has as its aim to reduce by half the number of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. This paper sets out some of the key considerations for addressing this goal through the forestry sector and in ensuring environmental sustainability (MDG 7). The paper concludes with an overview of the policy implications for achieving MDGs 1 and 7 through forest-based poverty alleviation initiatives.

Factors to be taken into account in forest-based poverty alleviation efforts
Several scientific developments have contributed to the recognition that forests may contribute to poverty alleviation. There is now a better understanding of the scope of forest-based poverty alleviation and the various household strategies that exist in this respect. It is now acknowledged that forests provide multiple livelihood assets (and not only productive ones), and also that forest-based livelihood activities usually form part of multiple-component livelihood strategies, which may include farming, animal keeping, wage labour and migration. There is also a greater awareness of the new opportunities for trading forest products and services, including non-timber forest products (NTFPs), aesthetic values (ecotourism) and environmental services (such as the provision of regular water supplies for domestic needs or CO 2 sequestration). However, there should be some caution against becoming overly optimistic about the role forests play in contributing to poverty alleviation because markets in these often isolated areas are generally poorly developed and characterised by weak producer organisations and high transportation costs. Furthermore, densities of NTFP resources may be low and their availability subject to seasonality. Several aspects need careful attention when stimulating forest-based poverty alleviation:

• Recognition of various livelihood strategies and various dimensions of poverty alleviation.
  It should be recognised that there are different categories of poor households, with varying degrees of dependence on forests and forest resources.
• Recognition of the multiple-component strategies of poverty-stricken rural households.
  Most poor rural households are engaged in multiple activities involving multiple environments. Both natural and manmade forests, including agroforestry fields, play a role in these strategies.
• Recognition of the full range of forest products and services.
  The NTFP versus timber distinction is a false dichotomy when it comes to poverty alleviation, all the more so because increasing portions of forest land are falling under local community ownership and control.
• Recognition of the importance of clear tenure arrangements.
  Forest-based poverty alleviation is impossible without clear tenure and forest use arrangements.
• Recognition of the importance of (equitable) access to markets.
  People need access to markets to capitalise on forest resources. Care must be taken to ensure that the benefits of developing new market opportunities for forest goods and services are distributed equally within communities and do not lead to the creation of new elites or the exclusion of, or negative effects on, other groups. This is also of crucial importance when considering the development of new payment schemes for environmental services.
• Recognition of the role of forest quality and management in enhancing forest products and services.
  The quality of the forest (in terms of its biodiversity, structure etc.) and of its management is linked in complex ways with its ability to deliver multiple goods and services for human livelihoods. The importance of forest quality varies for individual products and services. Poorly managed forests are likely to lose their ability to provide at least some services and this may impact on their potential to alleviate poverty.
• Recognition of the need to stimulate not only sustainable forest management, but also forest-based enterprise development.
  The subsistence and cultural importance of forests for indigenous and other local people has received increasing attention, but much less attention has been given to the commercial value of forests for forestdwelling and adjacent households and to the scope for diversification and specialisation based on forest resources.

Implications for policy and achieving MDGs 1 and 7
Forest policies, National Forestry Programmes and Poverty Reduction Strategies should link up with the commitments in Millennium Development Goals 1 and 7. This implies the need for strategies that stimulate linkages between forestry development and poverty alleviation.

Other policy implications include:

• In developing integrated strategies, explicit attention should be given to the distinction between poverty mitigation and poverty reduction. In some cases this will imply supporting subsistence economies and safety net functions, and in other cases (depending on locationspecific conditions) enhancing incomegenerating activities.
• Forests contribute significantly to subsistence needs and offer a safety net in times of shortfall, but the potential to lift people out of poverty on the basis of forest resources alone is limited. This implies that forest-related poverty alleviation policies should be multifaceted and tailor-made to fit in with multiple-component livelihood strategies and varying degrees of forest dependence. The poverty-alleviating role of man-made and other non-natural forests and cultivated fields deserves specific attention in this respect.
• Programmes aimed at stimulating forest-based poverty reduction should not assume that NTFPs offer better opportunities than timber products. Rather than taking different kinds of forest products as a starting point for development strategies, attention should focus on ways in which the poor can use and exploit a range of forest products, including timber, in an integrated and sustainable way.
• Any strategy to enhance the povertyalleviating role of forests should prioritise the clarification of tenure rights and act upon factors that limit poor people's access to forest resources. Specific attention should also be paid to the decentralisation and devolution of land and forest-use rights to local communities and forest user groups.
• Special measures are required to improve poor people's access to markets, such as breaking down the bureaucracy of exploitation and transport regulations, strengthening producers' organisations, stimulating small-scale forest-based enterprises, and forging public-private and company-community partnerships and other alliances that may enhance poor people's access to lucrative (niche) markets for timber, NTFPs and environmental services. In addition, forest-based poverty alleviation programmes should focus on improving the organisation and quality of forest management, and on the development of business skills.
• In addition to external markets, more attention needs to be paid to the role of local markets in poverty alleviation and the way in which performance in these markets (which absorb the majority of forest-based products sold by poor households) can be improved.

Note: The Wageningen-based North-South Centre recently published a policy brief that summarises the present state of scientific understanding of the contribution of tropical forests to poverty alleviation. This article provides a summary of this policy brief, the full text of which is available at http://www.wi.wur.nl/UK/Resources/Policy+briefs/

Further information:
Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen
Amsterdam Research Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies (AMIDSt)
Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Email: m.a.f.ros-tonen@uva.nl

Freerk Wiersum
Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University.
Email: freerk.wiersum@wur.nl

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