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PERSPECTIVES
CERTIFICATION OF NTFPs : AN EMERGING FIELD
By Patrick Mallet and Marion Karmann
Certification is a market-based tool that is becoming a hot topic in many natural resource sectors. A certification logo or label enables potential customers to differentiate products, based on the social and environmental 'qualities' of the commodity they decide to buy. This market opportunity is motivating many producers to adapt their management practices to meet certification criteria.
The harvest of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is coming under increasing scrutiny from certification programmes because of the key role that it plays in the sustainable management of community agriculture and forest resources worldwide. NTFPs are presenting many new challenges and opportunities in certification due to the wide range of management practices and difficulty in monitoring their harvest and processing.
While NTFPs have been certified through organic certification and, to a lesser extent, under fairtrade systems, the primary focus of recent work to develop certification has been through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). FSC promotes well-managed forests by applying criteria that address ecological, social and economic issues. The NTFP Working Group of the FSC has been undertaking field trials and interpreting the FSC Principles and Criteria to make them more appropriate for the harvest of NTFPs.
The following categories of criteria are included within the FSC and are useful in measuring the sustainability of all types of production systems:
While FSC is most closely associated with NTFPs, it is also the most expensive certification programme to implement. In addition, the FSC system is difficult to apply to the vast majority of informal community-based NTFP operations that constitute the bulk of NTFP harvesting worldwide. FSC is beginning to look at new models of community-based certification where a number of harvesters are certified as a group or where a resource manager is certified to oversee multiple harvesting operations. Despite this recent progress, FSC certification is probably still most appropriate for large scale industrial NTFP operations.
For small scale NTFP operations, as is the case for most food and medicinal product harvesting, organic agriculture certification provides a reasonable alternative. The range of criteria addressed under organic certification is narrower than under FSC, with an explicit focus on building soil fertility and crop management techniques. However, organic certifiers are beginning to look at landscape level issues as well as social concerns. Given the relatively low cost of certification and strong consumer recognition for organics, this certification may be most appropriate for many NTFP harvesting operations.
Fair trade is also an option for NTFP certification although only for southern producers. Fair trade is beneficial for small producers since its primary focus is on ensuring that they receive a fair deal for their products. Secondly, the costs of certification are borne by the retailer and consumer rather than by the producer. The current scope of products covered under fairtrade only includes a few agroforestry products although it is likely that this product base will grow to include NTFPs.
One issue on which all certification programmes can agree is that certification specific to NTFPs is still very recent and largely untested. However, the recent work of the FSC NTFP Working Group has gone a long way to refining certification for NTFPs. Trial certification assessments for specific NTFPs like chicle gum, Brazil nuts, and chestnuts have resulted in product specific interpretations of the FSC Principles and Criteria. In another case, SmartWood, an FSC-accredited certifier has developed a generic addendum to their criteria that will be used as the basis for all their future NTFP assessments. Finally, IMAFLORA, an organisation in Brazil is assessing the possibility of certifying a forest region from which a wide range of medicinal plants are harvested, based on the individual management plans developed for each species.
There are a number of challenges facing NTFP certification. Among the most critical are the following:
The primary goal of certification is to bring about positive environmental and social change in resource stewardship. Certification criteria can be used by producers and harvesters everywhere as a model for best practices. It must be remembered that the time and financial costs associated with undergoing a certification assessment often outweigh the benefits derived from being certified. When considering NTFP certification, the best option may be not to pursue a formal assessment.
Certification is only one tool among many to move towards more sustainable production systems. It will take further refinement of certification programmes to meet local realities, more producers and harvesters willing to test the certification market, and increased demand by consumers for certified products before the full benefits of NTFP certification are felt.
For more information,
please contact:
Patrick Mallet
Certification and
Marketing Program
Falls Brook Centre
Email: pmallet@web.net
http://www.web.net/~fbcja
Marion Karmann
Herdstr.4
58332 Schwelm,
Germany
Tel: + 49 2332
913892
Email: Karmann@uni-freiburg.de
NTFP CERTIFICATION: CHALLENGES FOR RESEARCH
By Jelle Maas and Mirjam A.F. Ros-Tonen
Background: the emergence
of NTFP certification
Various organisations
have taken up the issue of NTFP certification (Dürbeck, 1999). This issue
has gained a more pronounced place on the international agenda since the NTFP
Certification Workshops organised by the Falls Brook Centre (Canada) in Oaxaca,
Mexico. Although there are only a few officially certified NTFP products to
date, an increasing number of initiatives are being taken to develop standards
for NTFP certification. Mallet (1999) distinguishes three types - or fields
- of NTFP-related certification initiatives.
Sustainable forestry
Certification of
sustainably managed forests is mainly based on principles for Sustainable Forest
Management. Many sets of criteria and indicators prepared for timber certification
could partly be applied to NTFPs. Specific sets for the management of NTFPs
from natural forests are those of the Forest Stewardship Council's (FSC) NTFP
Working Group and the Rainforest Alliance/Smart Wood (Rainforest Alliance, 1998;
Shanley et al. 1998). Within this group of sets, an important issue is
the definition of NTFPs and the distinction between products from forests and
anthropogenic (human-made) vegetation types. Organisations such as the Institute
of Forestry and Agricultural Management and Certification (IMAFLORA, Brazil),
the Consejo Boliviano para la Certificación Voluntária (CFV),
Estudios Rurales y Asesoria (ERA, Mexico) and the WWF Mediterranean Programme
in Greece are undertaking field tests of standards for NTFP certification (FBC,
1998; Mallet, 1999; Lintu, 2000).
Certification of forest management in a defined area is based on performance requirements. Another option is to certify the environmental management system (EMS) of a forest organisation, which is typically made according to the respective international standards (ISO 14001/14004). EMS does not lead to product labelling (Demidova and Alhojarvi, 2000).
Organic agriculture
Certification systems
for NTFPs from human-altered vegetation types are partly being developed by
organisations in the field of organic agriculture. The most important among
these are the International Federation of Organic Agriculture (IFOAM), the Organic
Crop Improvement Association (OCIA) and ECOCERT International, which deals with
the EC2092/91 regulation for organic agriculture. These certification schemes
mostly focus on principles of organic production, addressing other criteria
to a lesser extent.
Fair-trade
Fair-trade based
criteria sets mainly focus on socio-economic criteria, with only general emphasis
on ecological and management issues. The Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO)
coordinates 17 national Fair-trade systems.
In addition to these basic types of certification, there are a number of other initiatives and procedures developed or under development among which Analogue Forestry. Analogue Forestry is a type of complex agroforestry developed by the Neo Synthesis Research Centre (NSRC) in Sri Lanka. The system encourages farmers to mimic the structure and ecological functions of the local natural forest ecosystem using species that provide them with a range of products for personal consumption or sale in the marketplace. Farmers benefit from the diversity of products that they harvest while also restoring the natural environment and supporting key ecological processes like soil retention and water purification (Senanayake and Jack, 1998).
Research priorities
in NTFP certification
While most
of the aforementioned organisations focus on the development and testing of
standards for certification, NTFP certification-related research is still in
its infancy. Worth mentioning are the research-oriented activities of the Rogue
Institute for Ecology and Economy (RIEE) in Ashland, Oregon, USA, and the NTFP
Network for Sustainable Forest Management in the Mediterranean by the WWF Mediterranean
Programme Office. The RIEE is focussing its research efforts on the education
and training of NTFP harvesters in the USA and has developed a manual of sustainable
harvesting guidelines for 27 NTFP species in Oregon (RIEE, 2000). The WWF project
aims at the conservation of important Mediterranean forest areas through the
promotion of rural community development in and around these areas and sustainable
NTFP production (FBC, 1998).
As was indicated during the meetings in Oaxaca, Mexico (FBC, 1998), and in the literature (Pierce, 1999), many aspects of NTFP certification require specific research. The outline below, which builds on one presented in Maas (2000), is an attempt to categorise these needs. It follows the three main objectives of NTFP research distinguished by Ros-Tonen (1999), i.e. forest conservation, participatory natural resource management and improved livelihoods. A forest-oriented approach, aimed at forest conservation, focuses on the development of an ecologically sustainable extraction system. From a people-oriented perspective, research should be supportive to participatory forest management and improved livelihoods. The introduction of certification has a significant impact on the social structures of a community (emancipation of specific groups like harvesters or traders), but will also influence the availability of the certified product on the local market. Arnold and Pérez (1998) mention the importance of some kind of balance between subsistence needs and the commercialisation of NTFP resources.
The following makes clear that there is a challenge ahead for continued collaborative NTFP research for the benefit of tropical rainforests and the people who depend on them for their livelihood.
1. Forest-oriented approach
2. People-oriented approach
For references please
contact the authors
Jelle Maas
Programme Unit,
Tropenbos Foundation
PO Box 232, 6700
AE Wageningen
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-317-495506
Email: j.b.maas@tropenbos.agro.nl
http://www.tropenbos.nl/tropenbos/tropenbos-home.html
Mirjam Ros-Tonen
Goethelaan 46
3533 VS Utrecht,
The Netherlands
Email: rosm@xs4all.nl
By Louise Fortmann
In this, the briefest of discussions of property and NTFPs, I discuss what property is, complexity, and the beneficiaries of property rights. If you have specific questions, please contact me at the address below.
What is Property?
To understand property
in NTFPs we need to dispel four commonly held assumptions about property. First,
we often think of property as being things - our house, our clothes, our bicycle.
This commonsense notion is misleading. Property is actually a social relationship
among people. It is an enforceable claim to rights in something. That is, my
cattle are my property because other people (or the state) recognize my right
to them and will enforce my property rights against would-be cattle rustlers.
A second common mistake is to think that the property rights regimes in the
North are universal. To the contrary, there is significant variation in what
can be claimed as property and what sorts of things are bundled together in
a single property right. In particular, people often think that every thing
that is found on a piece of land - water, trees, plants, wildlife, minerals
- is owned along with the land. In fact, property rights in trees and so on
are not infrequently held separately from the land. Third, we often assume that
if you own something, no one else has rights to it. Actually, multiple people
can have rights to different uses of the same object. For example, I may own
the timber in a pine tree, but you have the rights to all the needles and cones
until I harvest the tree. Finally, we tend to think that property is what the
government says it is; that property rights have to be recognized by the state.
To the annoyance of many governments, local people create their own enforceable
property regimes all the time.
Property Rights in
NTFPs Can Be Complex!
NTFPs take at least
three different forms - products of trees, e.g., firewood, fruit, bark, roots;
products from the understorey, e.g., grass, berries, mushrooms; and fugitive
resources that live in or move through a forest/tree - wildlife, insects, birds.
Thus, thinking about property in NTFPs raises three kinds of questions about
what property rights give rise to other property rights. Who owns the trees
and does s/he therefore own all parts of the tree, everything in or on it, and/or
the land on which it is growing? Who owns the land and does s/he therefore own
all the trees, everything in the understorey, and/or everything passing through?
Who owns the fugitive resources and does s/he therefore own the land and/or
trees on/in which these resources are found?
We must also ask, what, in the absence of a title from the government, creates what kinds of property rights? And for all rights to NTFPs we must ask under what circumstances do what categories of people have what rights, where, for how long? Obviously for any aggregation of trees, be it a forest, a woodlot, or small numbers of individual trees, there is potential for a complex array of overlapping rights in NTFPs.
Just Who Benefits from
NFTPs ?
Property rights
are important because they increase the likelihood that a person can secure
a livelihood from an NTFP. Discussions of livelihoods and livelihood strategies
often focus on resident households This makes the often erroneous assumption
that all members of the household benefit equally from household assets including
NTFPs. In some circumstances, women and children are significantly less likely
to benefit than men. Focusing on residents excludes regular mobile users from
the picture.
In terms of household inequity, a fundamental problem lies in the distinction between access, ownership and control. This is most often a problem for women. The economist Bina Agarwal has shown that male family members may control land even though legally it is owned by a woman in the family. The same principle applies to NTFPs - access or ownership without control reduces the likelihood that a woman can earn her own livelihood from the NTFP. An independent livelihood is not only important for providing subsistence, but also affects a person's status and power within a household, including for a woman whether or not she is likely to be beaten by her husband. Another example comes from the geographer, Dianne Rocheleau. Men and women used the same tree, men for swine food and women for handicraft materials. But since women did not own or control the trees, when swine food was no longer needed, men cut the trees down, destroying a resource that women needed.
The question of intra-household entitlements also arises for NTFPs managed as a common pool resource particularly in the case of divorce or death of a household head. Decisions about the management of NTFP commons may also exclude the seasonal users such as nomadic pastoralists, migratory mushroom pickers. This has two implications for the migratory users. First, they may be excluded from access to the NTFP altogether. Second, for any number of reasons, management by resident users may not maintain an adequate level or quality of the NTFPs.
A Final Caution
Property rights
are rarely a tidy set of rules. Property rights have histories that have effects
in the present. Property rights change as informal arrangements emerge that
may or may not be formalized but that, nonetheless, have clear effects on the
ground. Thinking clearly about property rights in NTFPs requires a careful eye
on the past and how it affects the present, a clear understanding of the different
kinds and seasonalities of users and uses, as well as a grasp on the distribution
of benefits.
Louise Fortmann
Department of Environmental
Science, Policy and Management
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3313,
USA
Tel: +1 510 642
7018, Fax: +1 510
643 1815
Email: fortmann@nature.berkeley.edu
THE INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY RESOURCES AND INSTITUTIONS (IFRI) RESEARCH PROGRAM AND THE SEARCH FOR COMMUNAL MANAGEMENT OF FOREST RESOURCES
By Amy R. Poteete
The International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research program is a network of collaborating research centres in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. Members of the IFRI network use standardized methods to collect data on a common set of biophysical, socioeconomic, and institutional variables. Researchers return to forest sites every three to five years to conduct repeat studies. By building an international database of comparable repeat studies, IFRI scholars gain the ability to draw comparisons across a large number of cases and over time.1
IFRI studies suggest that the perceived value of a resource is the most important factor affecting the emergence and success of institutions for self-governance. The use of forest resources shapes perceptions of forest value and condition. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) loom large in assessments of forests by local users of forest resources. The IFRI research protocols are sensitive to the multiple ways in which people interact with forests. We collect data on the use of a wide range of forest products including trees, bushes, grasses, leaves on the ground, climbing leaves (e.g., vines), soils, stones, minerals, and wildlife. Of the pairings of user groups and forests in our database, nearly all (87.4%) use at least one non-tree forest product. In fact, the most commonly used forest products for our study sites are grasses (70.5 %) rather than trees (compare parts of trees: 67.2 %; parts of bushes: 56.5 %; leaves on the ground: 35.9 %; climbing leaves: 32.2 %; soils, stones and minerals: 34.9 %; wildlife: 34.6 %)! The availability of NTFPs clearly influences assessments of forests by the people who use them, and thus affects their willingness to take action to protect their forest resources.
The ease with which the condition of the resource can be determined also influences perceptions of values associated with the forest (Gibson, McKean and Ostrom 2000). Reliable indicators of not only the condition of the forest, but also of links between the forest and its indirect services, are especially important. IFRI studies in several countries find that local people fail to take the actions needed to protect their forest resources when they are not aware of intangible forest services (e.g., watershed protection) that are at risk (Becker 1999; Becker and León 2000; Gibson 2000). The information that IFRI researchers collect on changing forest conditions and their consequences can be used to help increase local awareness of indirect forest services, and thus bolster local efforts at forest conservation (Becker 1999).
Recognition of a forest's value provides a motivation for working collectively to protect it, but does not guarantee collective action or its success. Collective action is costly. In addition to obtaining information, actors must overcome coordination problems, distributional struggles, and the incentive problems associated with shared resources. Characteristics of groups, such as their size and degree of homogeneity, gain importance because they influence the severity of coordination problems and distributional struggles. External recognition and support for local self-governance are also important factors. If the benefits of mobilization are high enough, a community may develop rules for resource management in the absence of external support. Official recognition of local autonomy lowers the transaction costs of self-governance.
Once established, institutions alter the importance of conditions that affect their survival. Institutions limit the effects of population pressure (Agrawal and Yadama 1997), population growth (Varughese 2000), and variable proximity to forest resources (Varughese and Ostrom, 2001).
By paying attention to biophysical, socioeconomic, and institutional factors, IFRI furthers our understanding of forest systems. We better understand the role of perceptions of forest value and condition, the importance of institutions in mediating the effects of social and economic changes, and the conditions for successful organization for forest management by the people who use forest resources. Of course, many questions remain. As our network grows and the number of repeat studies in our database accumulate, IFRI brings increased leverage to on-going efforts to untangle the relationships among people, their institutions, and forest resources.
1 As of December 2000, there are fourteen IFRI collaborating research centers in twelve countries. The first were established in 1993. Revisits have begun in Nepal, Uganda, and the USA. For more information, see our website (http://www.indiana.edu/~ifri).
A complete set of references
is available from the IFRI website:
http://www.indiana.edu/~ifri/publications.htm
or as a separate
PDF file: http://www.indiana.edu/~ifri/poteetereferences.pdf
For further information
please contact:
Amy Poteete
Workshop in Political
Theory and Policy Analysis
Indiana University
513 North Park
Bloomington, IN
47408 USA
Tel: +1 812-855-0441,
Fax: +1 812-855-3150
Email: apoteete@indiana.edu
FORGING (UN)DEMOCRATIC RESOURCE GOVERNANCE SYSTEMS FROM THE RELIC OF ZIMBABWE'S COLONIAL PAST
By Alois Mandondo
This article reviews natural resource governance in Zimbabwe's peasant sector from colonial to post-colonial times, with special emphasis on woodland resources. Governance is considered within the framework of power, process and practice and how these have shaped access, control and use of natural resources.
Zimbabwe's policy thrust seeks to empower peasant communities through decentralized entrustments to the use and management of natural resources. A careful examination of what is being decentralized to whom, how and with what effect shows that decentralization can have very little to do with democratization of forest management despite rhetoric implying decentralized structures and arrangements and democratic governance. For instance, founded upon the expropriation of land, resources and power from indigenous communities the colonial system of decentralized indirect rule of chiefs and allied "traditional" institutions, which were presided over and controlled by native commissioners to impose colonial administration, was very much about extending the power of the central state. This was justified in terms not unlike those advocating decentralization today, e.g. respect of local cultures; fiscal accountability; and giving people a voice in their own governance. Colonial natural resource governance systems were crafted in the context of conquest and subjugation and the extension of the power of the central state resulting in over-centralization of natural resource governance systems. Centrally-directed legislative controls were implemented in a highly authoritarian manner resulting in restricted access of peasant communities to natural resources.
Much of the colonial legislation was inherited piecemeal into post-colonial times. Although local government reform in the post-colonial period was purportedly adopted to give a democratic orientation in planning for local development, such reforms neither genuinely decentralized nor democratized local government. Instead, such reforms appear designed to ensure one-party political domination. Post-colonial amendments to over-centralized controls on peasant access and use of natural resources to date have largely deracialized the colonial acts and policies without democratizing them - most acts still feature the criminalizing, and command and control postures and approaches of their colonial antecedents. Natural resource governance systems have thus, by and large, resulted in weakening of the peasant stake in access, use and control of natural resources, from colonial through to post-colonial times.
Various strands of peasant disempowerment are evident. The first form is reflected through structures that deny peasant communities accountable forms of representation. For instance, the "traditional" chiefly institutions were founded on the undemocratic principle of fusion of legislative, executive and judiciary powers. Although the creation and reinforcement of such structures ran under the pretext of building on the legitimacy of existing structures, their design enhanced racial domination and the ascendancy of colonial administration, resulting in a decentralized despotism. Over the years chiefly institutions have been used to legitimize external (mostly state) agendas that further weakened the peasantry, including the extension of the state's influence or reviving its political mileage. The chiefly institutions existed in tandem with new institutions created by the state in the immediate post-independence period, ostensibly to democratize the process of planning for local development, but these also served to further the interests of one-party political domination.
The second form of disempowerment has been practised through the over-centralization of power and decision making in environmental regulation systems. A trend towards concentrating power in the executive, especially the presidency and bureaucracies under executive direction, was entrenched from colonial through to post-colonial times. In spite of aspiring to extend far-reaching control, the state and its bureaucracies lack the resources and capacity to effectively enforce most controls Third, over-centralization was justified through yet another form of disempowerment associated with discourses of "science" that justified a command and control approach to environmental regulation. The peremptory approach to environmental regulation was inherited piecemeal into post-colonial times, in which later amendments to colonial acts fell far short of democratizing the regulation systems. A fourth, and procedural form of disempowerment occurs through the use of alienating languages in local government bodies that are characterized by decision-making frameworks that override the visions of lower constituencies. Fifth there is fiscal disempowerment through urban biases in investment priorities, externalization of locally-collected revenues and also through the burdens imposed upon tax-payers by a multiplicity of bloated organizational hierarchies. Lastly there is a generalized disempowerment associated with presence at the local of many organizations, essentially sharing the same broad goals but with different and often "predetermined" visions of how, when, for whom and through whom to achieve them.
Lastly, pioneering efforts at decentralizing entrustments over use and management of resources to the peasant communities have largely resulted in recentralization at the district level, where such efforts are still practised in the top-down manner. This is in part because the policy thrust seeking to empower the peasant communities is supply-led, and thus defined according to the terms and processes of external agents, including funders of projects and central governments and their functionaries. Most forms of disempowerment reflect the dangers of supply- led decentralization in which states enjoy a free reign in defining governance systems, and the nature and extent of the entrustments to be devolved to local communities. There appears to be general reluctance on the part of the state to decentralize meaningful entrustments to local communities. Supply-led decentralization, therefore, needs to be complemented by demand-driven decentralization, conceivably championed by civil society to ensure genuine democratization and empowerment in natural resource management.
Incremental strategies could, because of a general absence of a vibrant civil society or social movements, particularly from the local settings, provide the initial front of engagement including advocacy for transparency and accountability within supply-led decentralization. As civil society and advocacy movements gain strength the agenda could be broadened to include advocating for reforms in governance structures and arrangements. Tactically, meaningful entrustments already secured for the community should be consolidated , whilst advocating for the expansion of the existing sets of entrustments. Most decentralization initiatives, including the CAMPFIRE programme, Zimbabwe's flagship for peasant empowerment in natural resource management, are nevertheless being implemented within a broader national political economy of racial inequities in the distribution of land. They therefore carry the stigma of "delaying tactics" or "diversionary pursuits" to the more fundamental question of land redistribution, which represents potentially the most important direction towards genuine empowerment of local communities. The major challenge of the unfolding land drama to civil society is the high polarization and the politically charged nature of the issue.
Community-based or CAMPFIRE-type approaches are also premised on the deep green ethos and values of a global (western) environmental discourse and scientific culture - participation for environmental conservation. Decentralization conceptualized within the framework of that culture is supply-led - guided by the values of that culture, and inherently top-down. That culture offers limited room for community empowerment without instrumentalizing it just for participation for environmental conservation. The challenge to civil society is to demand decentralization on the terms and definitions of beneficiary communities.
For further information
please contact:
Alois Mandondo
Institute of Environmental
Studies
University of Zimbabwe
P.O. Box M.P. 167
Mount Pleasant,
Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel: + 263-4-302693,
Fax: + 263-4-332853
Email: mandondo@africaonline.co.zw
THE ROLE AND DYNAMICS OF COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF NTFPs IN CAMEROON
By Jolanda van den Berg, Han van Dijk, Guy Patrice Dkamela, Yvette Ebene and Terence Ntenwu
Introduction
Most ongoing research
on NTFP production focuses on the potential for nature conservation, particularly
in terms of economic and ecological sustainability. Less attention has been
given to the dynamics of indigenous NTFP management systems, although it is
widely acknowledged that the capability of communities to manage and control
NTFP exploitation is of major importance for sustainable extraction. Indigenous
management systems tend to be responsive to external factors such as demographic,
economic, political and ecological change, which may lead to an increase of
tenurial insecurity and to destructive harvesting practices.
The study
This study aimed
to gain insight into the role and dynamics of community-based institutional
and regulatory frameworks related to NTFP resource exploitation and management
in the humid forest zone of Cameroon. It was focused on the relations between
increasing commercial value of NTFPs and exploitation and management intensities,
on the one hand, and the social sustainability of community-based NTFP management
institutions on the other hand. A comparative study on six pre-selected NTFP
species was undertaken. Three research sites were selected: Dja Biosphere Reserve,
Lékié district and the Tropenbos-Cameroon site. These are comparable
with regard to ecological conditions and local utilisation of these species,
but different in respect to four factors that can have an impact on the intensity
of NTFP resource exploitation and management: (a) availability of NTFP resources;
(b) market access; (c) population density and (d) presence of non-governmental
and private agencies (e.g. development and conservation organisations, logging
companies). In each site, three representative villages were chosen. The selected
NTFP species were expected to occur commonly and to be used and marketed in
at least two of the three sites. They had to be extracted from various habitats
(ranging from natural forests to plantations) and their exploitation had to
represent different levels of risks for unsustainable harvesting. The following
NTFP species were included in the study:
The survey included interviews with individual villagers based on questionnaires. In total 237 villagers (109 men and 128 women) were interviewed. The questions covered NTFP utilisation and its purposes, the relative and absolute importance of the selected NTFP species, and the construction of different sets of property rights to these NTFP species. Also, information was gathered on socio-economic conditions and the social and political organisation. The fieldwork took place end 1999.
Main results
No cases were recorded
where exploitation of the selected species was legitimised or constrained by
external regulatory frameworks. Customary tenure in NTFP resources in south
Cameroon can be depicted as a variable combination of group rights to manage
or control access to, exploitation and production of NTFP resources on the one
hand, and individual user rights on the other. Four factors were identified
that determine the distribution of such property rights, as well as the social
unit in which these rights are established: (1) land types; (2) the way land
was acquired (inherited versus self-acquired through forest clearance or purchase);
(3) the nature and intensity of improvements to land or resources; and (4) the
type of resource concerned.
In all areas, land right holders are limited by secondary user rights to NTFP resources on their land. The distribution of secondary user rights differs between and within the research areas, but the group of people holding user rights to NTFP resources is always larger than the group who holds the right to control and manage access, exploitation and production, except for oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). In cases of self-acquired land resources, particularly cash crop plantations, the group of user right holders is the most restricted. Planting NTFP trees creates the most individual rights, including exclusive user rights. Among Badjoué people in the Dja area, for all land use types involved, user rights are the most widely distributed.
There exists considerable variation in NTFP utilisation, commercialisation, exploitation and management practices and tenure between different areas in southern Cameroon as well as between the selected NTFP species. In the most densely populated and most accessible area (Lékié), there is a tendency to abandon the exploitation of commonly used NTFPs and to buy these products instead. However, the level of NTFP commercialisation is higher compared to the other areas. There is also a shift in production areas from natural forests with predominantly communal NTFP management and broad distribution of user rights to NTFP resources, to man-made production systems with more individually based management and use of NTFP resources. But a broad distribution of user rights during peak production periods in the Lékié area suggests a strong resilience of customary property perceptions and relations. Moreover, the level of application of management techniques in this area is as low as in other areas. This is in contrast with the expectation that increasing exploitation pressure and reduction of suitable forest habitats will lead to more intensive management in modified forest-like systems.
Conclusions
The study did not
reveal that the extent of forest degradation and related decrease in availability
of wild NTFP resources, or the presence of favourable economic conditions, influences
the level of applied NTFP management techniques. The variation between particular
NTFP species in terms of management practices and intensities, calls for the
establishment of species-oriented NTFP development approaches and not only a
production system approach. Further research is needed to evaluate the importance
of land use conditions (in particular land availability and tenure security)
and cultural factors (in particular local perceptions of NTFP management and
ownership) in relation to specific resources in order to optimise the impacts
of NTFP based development efforts.
This study was made possible by the Central African Program for the Environment (CARPE), with support from the Biodiversity Support Program (BSP), a consortium of World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy and World Resources Institute with funding by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The views expressed in this article, are those of the authors, and are not necessarily shared by CARPE.
For further information
please contact:
Jolanda van den Berg
Wageningen University,
Law and Governance Group
P.O. Box 8130
6700 EW Wageningen,
The Netherlands
Tel: + 31 317 484633,
Fax: + 31 317 484763
Email: Jolanda.vandenberg@alg.ar.wau.nl
Han van Dijk
Wageningen University,
Forest Policy and Management Group
P.O. Box 342
6700 AH Wageningen,
The Netherlands
Tel: + +31 317
478017, Fax: +
31 317 478078
Email: Han.vandijk@bosb.alg.wau.nl
NTFPs IN THE BOLIVIAN AMAZON: SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT IN VIEW OF INSTITUTIONAL DEFICIENCIES
By Dietmar Stoian, Carmen Gottwald, Sergio Ruiz, Wil de Jong, Michel Becker & Alan Bojanic
Since 1996, the Institute of Forest Policy (IFP), Markets and Marketing Section, of the University of Freiburg has been collaborating with CIFOR in a research project on NTFPs in the northern Bolivian Amazon, co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The first phase of the joint project focussed on the socio-economic impact of northern Bolivia's Brazil nut and palm heart industries on regional development. Employing a livelihoods perspective, it could be demonstrated that the gathering, processing, and marketing of Brazil nut and palm heart is an indispensable source of household income in both rural and peri-urban areas. Contrary to what the literature suggests, NTFP extractors are not generally marginalized in the extractive economy. Rather, the benefits captured by those at the very beginning of the marketing chain are subject to considerable variation; these depend on access to the resource base, transportation and market information, as well as the contractual arrangements governing the extraction process and the family labour available.
Though also subject to variation, benefit sharing in the palm heart industry is even more in favour of the extractors: gatherers, intermediaries and processing plant operators gain typically 40%, 22% and 38% of the F.O.B. price, respectively. In sum, NTFP gatherers in northern Bolivia's extractive economy pocket the highest profits per production unit, followed by owners of large estates or processing plants, the plants' labourers, itinerant traders, and contractors.
It was found that rural households carefully balance the trade-offs between extractivism, agriculture and wage labour. Rural dwellers in more remote settlements emphasize extractive activities whereas those in the proximity of town gear a larger share of their agricultural produce to the market. The persistence of NTFP extraction is thus rooted in a varied NTFP portfolio and flexible responses to market opportunities and decline, rather than the deliberate management of NTFP resources with a long-term view for sustained production. Extraction-based livelihood strategies further entail seasonal or circular migration in accordance with times of low or high demand for labour, e.g. residence in (peri-) urban areas from where they set out to the forest only in times of the Brazil nut or palm heart season. A strong rural-urban nexus underlies various extractive activities, without which neither the extractive economy nor (peri-) urban livelihoods could be sustained.
The ultimate rubber decline in the early 1990s led to a further diversification of the regional economy: along with increased agricultural activities, the region's Brazil nut, palm heart and timber industries have been notably expanded. Given the region's poor soils, scarcely developed infrastructure, low market access, lack of capital and human resources, and general political neglect, it is anticipated that northern Bolivia will have to rely on the exploitation of (non-timber) forest resources for a long time to come.
The research revealed that the institutional arrangements governing their extraction are poorly understood. To address this shortcoming, a second phase will highlight the institutional arrangements, constraints and conflicts in northern Bolivia's extractive economy. One of the hypotheses is that adequate institutional arrangements are of major importance in promoting sustained use and benefit capturing in extractive economies. It is presumed that present institutional arrangements need modification to work toward this end.
The theoretical framework will draw on the concept of New Institutional Economics (NIE), whereby institutions are understood as the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, the human devised constraints that shape human interaction; in consequence, institutions structure incentives in human exchange, whether political, social, or economic (North 1990). NIE is an interdisciplinary approach to explain phenomena which have not been adequately addressed by Neoclassical Economics. It implies aspects such as property rights, transaction costs, asymmetric information and power relations. In addition to NIE, the analytical framework will draw on the concepts of Political Ecology and Social Capital.
Institutional analysis in the case of northern Bolivia will emphasize the profound legal reforms the country has experienced in the last decade with a wide impact on natural resource use. At local level, there is also a range of institutions other than laws (e.g., a system of advance payments called habilito, or customary rights related to land tenure) which play a crucial role in the extractive economy. Being informal or private, these institutions complement or, in some cases, conflict with formal institutions such as laws. Thus it will be crucial to distinguish between de jure and de facto institutional arrangements when analysing the institutional underpinning of (non-timber) forest use.
Research is coordinated by Dr. Wil de Jong (CIFOR) and Prof. Dr. Michel Becker (IFP). PhD students in the first phase are Alan Bojanic (University of Utrecht) and Dietmar Stoian (IFP) and, in the second, Carmen Gottwald and Sergio Ruiz (both IFP).
For references and further
information, please contact:
Dietmar Stoian
Institute of Forest
Policy
Markets and Marketing
Section
Bertoldstr. 17
79085 Freiburg,
Germany
Tel: +49-761-203
8500, Fax: +49-761-203
8502
Email: stoian@uni-freiburg.de
Prof. Dr. Michel Becker,
IFP, University of Freiburg, Germany
Email: fopoml@uni-freiburg.de
Alan Bojanic, University
of Utrecht:, The Netherlands
Email: a.bojanic@geog.uu.nl
Dr. Wil de Jong, CIFOR,
Indonesia
Email: w.de-jong@cgiar.org
Carmen Gottwald, IFP,
University of Freiburg, Germany
Email: carmengottwald@gmx.net
Sergio Ruiz, IFP, University
of Freiburg, Germany
Email: sruiz@uni-freiburg.de
NTFPs AND DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION - PERCEPTIONS AND STRATEGIES OF DECISION MAKERS
By Jochen Statz
International discussions see the promotion and marketing of Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs) as a promising approach to reconcile the dual aim of protecting tropical forests and promoting societal development. Yet, in practice, use and trade of NTFPs still plays a subordinate role in the field of development co-operation. A growing number of NTFP-related studies document a wealth of positive aspects of this form of forest use. It remains uncertain, though, how these isolated aspects can contribute to a development that integrates economic, social and ecological aspects.
A PhD-study published recently at the University of Freiburg/Germany looks into potential benefits of NTFP-based forest use. In two South American countries it analyses how decision-makers involved in national development policy and international development co-operation perceive this potential.
Decision makers working in development co-operation determine how prominent a role NTFPs play in forest based development co-operation. It is therefore crucial to understand how they perceive the potential for the use and trade of NTFPs. To answer this question 60 experts (15 in Paraguay and 45 in Bolivia) representing the research sector, policy making, administration and trade, as well as development co-operation, were interviewed. They were asked about their development paradigms and their assessment of the possible contributions of NTFP-based forest use to development. Furthermore, they were asked to outline strategies for the promotion of NTFPs use in accordance with their individual understanding of development.
These interviews were semi-structured and took between one and two hours each. Statements made during the interviews were grouped thematically. Key hypotheses about the successful promotion of NTFP use and trade were derived in a second step. Subsequently, a reference group of the experts discussed and further refined the preliminary findings, leading to a set of five key approaches to successful NTFP promotion. They comprise: 1) intensifying NTFP related research; 2) promoting the concept of sustainable development at the national level, 3) sustaining substantial economic returns from use of NTFPs 4) gaining support of the private sector and 5) promoting NTFP trade stepwise (with marketing of selected products first locally, then regionally and at a later stage internationally). Potential benefits of each of these strategies are not cumulative, i.e. combining as many approaches as possible will not automatically lead to ever more successful strategies.
For further analysis of the verbal data, a Qualitative Comparative Analysis was carried out, an analytical tool developed for comparative social science research by Ragin. As a result key features of strategies to promote NTFP trade were determined and then combined with each other. The interviewed experts saw a number of combinations as promising for the promotion of NTFPs, each being a very specific combination of the strategic elements listed above. Amongst them, economic success in the marketing of NTFPs appears to be crucial, yet only if accompanied by a political and economic setting committed to "sustainable development".
The analysis of the verbal data reveals that none of the five approaches is seen as sufficient or necessary in itself for a successful promotion of NTFPs. All of them can lead to success if combined with certain other characteristics, yet can lead to undesirable results if combined with others. To cite an example, introducing NTFPs to international markets is not seen as beneficial per se. It is rather the specific combination with other approaches (in some cases even their absence) that is expected to result in societal development.
Strategies developed for Paraguay and Bolivia differ in some key traits: while applied research combined with a market oriented approach is seen as promising in Bolivia, experts in Paraguay fear that an intensified marketing of NTFPs might lead to further depletion of forest resources. For Paraguayan experts, intensified forest use is not justified until "sustainable development" is well established in the country.
According to the interviewed decision-makers, two prominent key positions commonly held in the international debate ("conservation through commercialisation of NTFPs" and "development through empowerment of NTFP users") only prove adequate under very specific conditions.
In translating the results of the studies into concrete strategies it needs to be born in mind that the general approach to development co-operation has shifted from "transitive development assistance through projects" to "support for reflexive, autochthonous initiatives pursuing development". In line with today's conception of development assistance this process should not be unilinear and teleological (i.e. bound to a predefined purpose) but rather open as far as the specific outcomes of such initiatives are concerned.
Furthermore, a universal approach to the promotion of NTFP-based forest use and societal development is elusive due to the very diverse natural, economic and social conditions in the various regions of both countries.
Strategies derived in this study can serve as a point of departure for the promotion of NTFPs, but they are only preliminary. Bearing in mind that development is more a process than a target, constant reflection and revision of development strategies based on the use and trade of NTFPs will be required. To this end, the QCA applied in the study can serve as a monitoring tool.
The dissertation concludes with a set of theses regarding the "Promotion of NTFPs in development co-operation" which go beyond the narrow geographical focus of the study.
Please contact the author with comments or for a copy of the dissertation (written in German):
Dr. Jochen Statz
Institute of Forest
Policy
Markets and Marketing
Section
Bertoldstr. 17
79085 Freiburg,
Germany
Email: jochen.statz@uni-freiburg.de
or jochen.statz@gtz.org.np