- Ghana: "Promissory" reforestation plans end up in unemployment

Burdened by a mounting foreign debt and pushed by globalisation and trade liberalisation, Ghana, as many other West African countries, has had its ability to finance domestic public spending severely constrained. In addition most of the exports of African countries suffer decline in prices leading to overall poor returns in revenue and contributing to huge budget deficits. In a desperate bid to service debt and face their deficit, many countries in Africa including Ghana have been relying on the aggressive extraction of primary resources and not only plunder forest resources but also neglect budgeting for sustainable forest management practices.

Timber exports have been a major "commodity", leading to the depredation of Ghanian forests. Nearly half the country was covered with forests, which included 680 species of trees and several varieties of mahoganies. Most of this wood has been cut. By the early 1990s, only about one-third of the country's forests remained.

Also, indigenous lands have been massively converted into logging and mining areas as well as into agricultural crops cultivated to meet external needs, mainly under extensive monoculture plantations. In the quest for foreign investments to come in, local people's land rights have been denied.

After loosing some 70% of the forests, heavy restrictions on logging have been imposed in the country and an afforestation (more precisely reforestation) programme was put in place. However, such endeavour has been developed under the same pattern of supplying primary products to support unsustainable livelihoods elsewhere and also as extensive monoculture plantations. In this case of trees with commercial value generally to feed pulp paper mills. Amazingly enough, these plantations qualify as forests in some circles!

The plantation syndrome is epitomised by perverse incentives being provided by governments. Ghana for example has advocated the setting up of a fund to support the promotion of tree plantation establishment by individuals and companies with appeals being made to poor community land owners to release land for that purpose. The FAO has supported the provision of plantation incentives. The afforestation and reforestation scheme --which implies a narrow variety of species and is being done by the Ghanian Forestry Department and some sawmills-- has been promoted as an important "development project" which will provide jobs for an impoverished population.

However, the Ghanian publication Chronicle has recently revealed that about 150 people engaged by Asuowam Complex (AC) Ltd, a timber firm at Wamfie in the Brong Ahafo Region, for a reforestation project at the degraded forest reserve of Pamu-Brekum have been redeployed. Since the project took off in 1998, AC Ltd has been able to plant trees covering about 400 hectares. Out of the total of 150 people engaged by AC Ltd as the labour force for the project only a skeleton staff of 15 are now left to hold the fort. The decision by the management of AC Ltd to terminate the appointment of 135 people stemmed from the fact that the company had run out of funds as a result of lack of logs for its operations. The company first revoked the appointment of its work force at the timber firm and later topped it with those working on the reforestation project.

At the end there is a desert of trees and no work for people. A bad balance, indeed, that deserves more than a second thought.

Article based on information from: "The Bane of Sustainable Forest Management in Africa: The Case of Ghana. A Discussion paper", Lambert Okrah, ICA-Ghana, e-mail: icagh@ghana.com ; Country Study & Country Guide for Ghana, http://www.1upinfo.com/country-guide-study/ghana/index.html ; "Dark Clouds Over Gov't Afforestation Program", Dominic Jale, Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra), http://www.ghanaian-chronicle.com/220624/

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- Kenya: The Sengwer, a traditional culture on the verge of extinction

A traditional hunter, gatherer and honey collector culture, the Sengwer are an indigenous ethnic group from Kenya's Rift Valley, who used to live in small scattered groups spread over large areas in the plains of Kapchepkoilel (Trans Nzoia) and part of Uasin Gishu.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Europeans came and occupied those lands. The Sengwer did not know that their land had been divided by the colonial government and given out from 1911 to the settlers. Around 1930, the Europeans were well settled and started to chase away the Sengwer and other ethnic groups, even burning their houses. Little by little, the Sengwer came to understand the situation, but it was too late. The Sengwer were constrained to the Cherangany forests, source of numerous streams, springs and rivers some of which flow into river Nile waters and some to lake Turkana. However, they were deprived of any right to the land.

At independence in 1963, the Sengwer thought their land was going to be given back, but assimilation started, cultural practices were influenced and the social economic status of the Sengwer did not improve like it did for the other ethnic groups. So for the Sengwer there was no difference between the colonial and the Kenyan government.

The loss of their ancestral lands has forced them to abandon many of their customs and livelihoods in favour of participation in an economy in which they are systematically discriminated against. Thirty-nine years after Kenya became independent, the Sengwer are still struggling for legal recognition by the government and are one of the most marginalised ethnic groups in Kenya. They are on the verge of extinction. Numbering around 60,000, many Sengwer were assimilated into other communities in the region and only about 5,000 still dwell in their original forest land of the Embobut Forest in Marakwet. Losing their land have implied for the Sengwer not only losing a place to live but a place from where the community have benefited by collecting honey, hunting and gathering fruits and roots as well as collecting plants and herbs of medicinal value.

The Sengwer have little to no representation in local or national government, and have not benefited from land devolution policies in recent decades. The government has taken part of the Sengwer ancestral land and converted part of it into Tea Zones without the consent of the community. Besides, the community does not benefit from this, neither gets any percentage from the proceedings of the produce nor has been compensated. Furthermore, they have suffered the government's disrespect to their identity in the official recommendations that small communities be merged and assimilated into the larger ones.

David Yator Kiptum, executive co-ordinator of the Sengwer Indigenous Development Project (SIDP) --a non-profit organisation devoted to protecting and promoting the rights of the Sengwer-- paints a troubling picture of his peoples' straits: "We are discriminated against in any development project, recruitment for training colleges, employment, [and] our ancestral land taken away during the colonial period has since then been given out to members from other communities, civil servants, politicians, etc. without considering our people."

SIDP has a broad agenda, focusing on the adoption of "profitable and sustainable projects that will enhance education, socio-economic, family health and human rights status (for example fight against wife beating and general domestic violence)" and working "to protect, preserve and revitalise the Sengwer language, culture, traditions, herbal healing knowledge and environment", as its mission statement reads.

Article based on information sent by David Yator Kiptum, Sengwer Indigenous Development Project, e-mail: sengwer.idp@africaonline.co.ke , Web-site: http://www.multimania.com/sengwer ; and from "The Sengwer Indigenous Peoples of Kenya", http://membres.lycos.fr/sengwer/

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- What is the Future of FSC Certification in South Africa?

The cuddly tree logo of the Forest Stewardship Council adorns the products of alien industrial tree plantations, as well as those of the real thing (forests, that is). It could mean virtually anything to the average person buying those products, but it is clear that the intention of the logo is to enhance the marketability of the timber products in question.

What those who subscribe to its use hope for, is that potential customers will experience good, warm, fuzzy feelings about their actions when choosing to buy furniture or other wood items bearing the logo. The publicity that precedes decisions in this regard pretty well guarantees acceptance: Soft-soaped shoppers with even the tiniest degree of social or environmental conscience are easy prey -even if it means they must pay a premium for the privilege!

"Sustainably Managed Forests" conjures up images of teeming life within wild woods where only sensitively selected trees are harvested. The impression created (wrong to be sure) is that buying wood products from trees such as these must surely guarantee a place in do-gooders' heaven!

Whilst there are forests that do give up real forest trees for human use, there are denizens of places where no forest ever grew, imposters, that make a mockery of centuries of wise and sensitive utilisation of Nature's bounty: false or fake things deviously described to mislead men and women -Industrial Timber Plantations.

Humankind must be made to believe that greed is good; that war is peace; that destruction is development; that wrong is right. That alien tree monocultures imposed on peoples and their places are FORESTS.

Forests my foot!! Anything but! Perhaps a new form of Apartheid, driving people off their land, is more like it.
Are we trying to fool everyone into believing that the purpose of life is to suck our planet dry in the shortest possible time? There are some that believe it will be good for the global economy. Every drop of water, every inch of land, every living thing; must be in corporate ownership, or control. And plantations are the way. Praise almighty Profit!

There is a myth promoted by those who wish to steal from the future -that sustained growth in consumption is the same as the wise limitation of natural resource utilisation. They also sell the 'fast food' lie that false forests can be substituted for the real thing, and that it will be possible for the world to carry on wasting wood without worry!
Ignore the consequences: destruction of biodiversity; pollution and loss of water resources; loss of livelihoods and starvation! Who has the right to claim that their actions are sustainable? Only those who follow can judge what we do today.

The FSC was really aiming to do what was right. Really wanting to give consumers an option that would benefit all. Trying to take the pressure off over utilised and badly managed forests, and also to ensure that good corporate behaviour is rewarded.

But the bottom line is that timber plantations are not forests. Superficial likeness is purely that. They are so different in so many respects. Only ignorance, or stupidity, or deliberate deceit, can allow otherwise. If it is necessary to have some timber plantations, as is the case in this country, South Africa, then by all means have a certification system for timber derived from plantations that are well managed, in the right place, and benefit local people.

The timber that is produced and currently exported in a raw form from so-called developing countries, should be processed and given added value where employment is needed most: inside those countries, in the area where it is grown, by the local people. The FSC must establish a completely separate set of guidelines for the owners of industrial timber plantations to apply to their activities. Also to design an appropriate symbol to denote 'plantation' as opposed to forest, and to educate timber growers and consumers alike.

If they continue to follow their misguided present path, it will undermine all their positive achievements.

By: Wally Menne, Timberwatch, e-mail: plantnet@iafrica.com , http://www.timberwatch.org.za

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- Tanzania: Conservation should be with the people

According to a paper produced by the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Forestry and Beekeeping Division, the Forest Policy in Tanzania identifies deforestation as the major problem in forest management, which is believed to proceed at the rate from 130,000 to 500,000 hectares per year. The main areas affected are unreserved lands belonging to the government. The reasons for deforestation are clearing for agriculture, overgrazing and wildfires, charcoal burning and over exploitation of wood resources.

However, there may be also other factors preventing an effective forest conservation. Interviews in the rural areas showed that people around forest lands understand that those lands belong to the government but that they have so far had no say on forest management. A 1957 Ordinance governs the conservation and management of forests and forest products, imposing restrictions over the use and/or occupation of such areas which belong to the government. One of the conclusions regarding the policy is that forest resources are regarded as alien resources to common villagers.

The establishment of conservation areas have come mainly as a command for the communities. Studies made by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters revealed that most of the present conservation areas have not taken into account the interests of the population around forest resources.

The case of the Mikumi National Park is an example of that. The park was established from a game controlled area and the decision was taken without any participatory planning and management. The community around was given 90 days to submit their claims of compensation and 30 days were given for appeals against the assessment of their rights, although they had traditional or customary rights in the area.

The Commission visited villages of Kigoma region around Moyowosi and Mukuti forest reserves where villagers complained that their village land has exhausted its natural fertility. The villagers requested part of the Moyowosi and Mukuti forest reserves to be curved back for villagers to get land for cultivation. In Kigoma region there are other places where arable land for agriculture is available, the only problem is lack of integrated planning to save the forestlands especially in public lands.

Evidences reveal that full participation of the people in planning and implementing conservation is indispensable. Consequently, in order to be successful conservation should be with the people, not without them.

Article based on information from: "National Forest Program Forestland Tenure Systems in Tanzania", by the Forestry and Beekeeping Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism of Tanzania. The full document can be accessed at: http://www.tzonline.org/pdf/taskforceonforestland.pdf