National Workshop on the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest
Degradation in Samoa
Funded by the Global Forest Coalition
Prepared by Fiu Mataese Elisara,
Executive Director of Ole Siosiomaga Society, Samoa

Host Organization: Global Forest Coalition

Organizer: Ole Siosiomaga Society Inc., (OLSSI)

Venue: Village of Aopo, Island of Savaii, Samoa

Dates of Workshop: 17 - 21 December, 2002

Participant Villages: Salailua, Sili, Aopo (but data of eight villages - Aopo, Sasina, Letui, Sili, Gautavai, Gataivai, Taga, Salailua)

Resource Persons: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Observatory; Stanley and Associates; Church Ministers; Forest Loggers; Florists; Traditional Orators; Teachers of the Education Department; Members of the OLSSI Board; Apia Management Services; Cultural Orator from the Samoa Visitors Bureau, and a past President of OLSSI now residing in Canberra Australia as trade adviser to the Australian Government.

Executive Summary

Participants of the villages who participated in the Aopo workshop paid tribute to the donor and OLSSI for opening their eyes to the issue in question. Of particular importance to them is the fact that it took this workshop to enable them fully understand what it really means to agree with business ventures to harvest their invaluable native rainforests. The field work to the loggers operations demonstrated clearly to them as land owners how very little they are getting for their trees when compared with what the loggers are getting in return for the harvest. The workshop was welcomed by the villages that were already approached by loggers to cut their forests as they are now in a much better position to negotiate and to decide on ways that will best give them the real benefits of their forests by conservation measures.

For OLSSI, this was a success story in its concern in the ongoing exploitation of the forests in Samoa and the high rate of depletion of this invaluable resource for the future generations. Without the village leaders fully aware on the true value of their natural resources, if they are not conversant with the real impact of the contracts signed between them as forest owners and business operators, we can do very little to counter these concerns.

The involvement of the Ministry of Forestry staff was a key component in this national workshop. As forestry policy implementers in the field on a daily basis, and with them making direct contact with the villages who are the resource owners, their input as resource persons and the data they provided helped the substance, integrity and content of the workshop. For them, the workshop was a huge help in their work as foresters as they too found the support by the village leaders emanating from the Aopo sharing most useful in their work. As Samoans from some of these villages which are exploited by the loggers, the forest officials were themselves frustrated to keep on witnessing the inequity and injustice of the unfair and manipulative nature of partnerships between their villages and business loggers. As catalytic agents of proposing legislation and regulatory systems for monitoring these partnerships, the foresters find it discouraging to be given very little attention by government to supporting their efforts to bring the ineffective and unacceptable legislative framework on forestry management to take in to account the concerns advocated in the workshop.

The following detailed report will help readers to obtain a more fuller understanding on the current status of the forest situation in Samoa. As for the OLSSI, this report will be shared with the government departments concerned and will also form the basis of its advocacy work with the media and those who are genuinely concerned for forest conservation in Samoa. The President of OLSSI Board of Directors has agreed to make a formal presentation of the findings of this workshop to the Prime Minister and members of Cabinet on these concerns and to formally lodge OLSSI position and recommendations on this matter. The OLSSI is confident of the outcome of this national workshop which has secured the strong support of the village leaders to join OLSSI in any of its future initiatives to continue the struggle to stop the process of deforestation and forest degradation.

A way forward for this is to have OLSSI formulate the 'Aopo Accord' which will clearly list the concerns raised in the Aopo national workshop and have this endorsed by all the villages who are concerned about this problem as well as the participants of the workshop. The Accord will be based very much on the content of this report and the findings of the workshop. The Aopo Accord will form the basis of future advocacy action of OLSSI and the basis of a formal protest to the Prime Minister and government to press action to finding amicable solutions to this matter which has been allowed to continue unabated for too long.

Preparatory Process: After formal approval of the workshop by the host organization in the first week of December, OLSSI proceeded quickly with the field work visiting the villages in the bigger island of Savaii. This was appropriately led by a Samoan orator to inform them of the proposed workshop and to ensure their support for participants and organize a venue for the workshop as the timing very close to Christmas was most inconvenient. The village peoples were already in the mood of the festive season. Still, the field work proved most useful to secure the support of the villages.

Whilst the village of Sili initially accepted to host the workshop, their prior cultural commitment posed too much logistical problems. It was only through the close personal friendship of one of the OLSSI staff member with the Aopo village pastor that secured a last minute change of venue to the Aopo village. This proved rather costly as Aopo village, located some two hours away from the wharf, required a much higher transportation budget than initially allowed for in the submission. This was due to the fact that resource persons from the island of Upolu traveled to Aopo at different times and had to be picked up and transported back to the wharf after their presentations. This happened during the three days of the workshop and some days required several trips to and from the wharf.

Invitations were issued to the Diplomatic Corp, heads of government departments, forest loggers, FAO, NGOs, and Ministers of Cabinet. The Minister of Forestry was asked to deliver the formal address and open the workshop. Whilst many responded positively, the heavy commitment of many during the Christmas and this festive time of the year made most of the invited guests unable to travel. The long distant to Aopo village necessitating taking the ferry crossing, and being away for at least one whole day, was a deciding factor in many of the regrets from the invited guests. Even the Minister of Forestry was unable to attend because all the Cabinet Ministers had to attend to the official opening and launch of a very big government water reticulation project. Instead, the Head of Forestry in Samoa, and Assistant Director of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, and Meteorology graced our workshop by doing the honor of delivering the keynote address and officially opening the national workshop.

Information for the desk review were gathered from the many records of the past on forestry and the case study translated into the many facets of the different topics covered by the different presentations of the resource persons. Presentations were all delivered in the Samoan language using the latest presentation technologies, equipment and methodologies. These provided added interest and impetus to the village participants, as they freely dialogue on the subject matter of the workshop using their own Samoan language.

Press Releases and Media Coverage: A copy of the press release is attached. This was circulated and covered by radios (FM and government), television, and newspapers the week of the workshop. Members of the media and press also participated in the workshop throughout the three days duration. A video copy of the workshop and photos taken of the workshop activities are also attached for the workshop records.

Selection of Participants: The villages still rich with forest resources were targeted and the host village received an open invitation to have all its peoples participate. The other two participant villages sent key village chiefs and village mayors with the village of Sili also had its village church minister participating. Aopo as host village also had its church minister lead the workshop arrangements and as a member of the OLSSI was a very active participant providing some very useful insight and recommendations on the workshop subject. The key village leaders and church ministers were strategically targeted as decision makers. As a Christian country, Samoa citizens give the church undivided attention. The church ministers giving a spiritual angle to the issue of natural resources conservation as God's creation requiring responsible stewardship by people make the participant of the church ministers even more powerful and strategic.

Members of the press and media also participated throughout the three days of the workshop and they helped cover much of the workshop activities. Copies of their newspaper coverage are also attached for the records of the workshop.

Process during the workshop: On the first day, Tuesday 17th, staff of OLSSI and Department of Forestry from Upolu took the lead travelling to Aopo Savaii to ensure all the logistical arrangements of transportation, accommodation, venue, village support, Savaii Forestry staff, and the setting up of equipment were ready ahead of time.

On Wednesday 18th, the cultural ceremony to formally greet the visitors to Aopo village was held. This pre-requisite and important event was led by an articulate Samoan orator on behalf of the OLSSI and SFOE/P. It paved the way for formal access in to Aopo village and acceptance by its peoples of the workshop, Board members of OLSSI, participants, and resource persons. It cleared the usual spiritual taboos of the Aopo land and its surroundings and chase away any evil spirits that might stand in the way of the workshop. This was also followed by a church service for the whole village and participants to give the workshop God's blessing.

The workshop program attached will show the sequence of activities and presentations organized for the three days. Presenters were given time to make their presentations after which there were questions from the participants, responded to by the presenter. The workshop was then broken up into four working groups to discuss in detail the issues addressed in the presentations. These groups were facilitated by selected persons and key questions guided group discussions with reports back to the plenary. These sessions and reports allowed a much more broader discussion on the issues presented and ensure all the participants contributed. Conducted in the Samoan language, we found the views of the village leaders and church ministers most interesting, useful, and valuable. School teachers from Aopo village who participated provided added assistance in the reporting to plenary and in group presentations.

The mid day lunch by the Aopo village on all three days became another powerful forum utilized by the workshop for information sharing. This included all resource persons, participants and village citizens who took advantage of the opportunity to listen to the discussions which broadened out to other interesting areas which entertained everyone. As well, night sessions were held specifically for the village children where environmental conservation and natural resources management videos were shown. This proved most popular and attended by almost all the village citizens and participants. When followed by questions and answers quiz with those giving the right responses rewarded with environmental publications, it was a great attraction. The use of the public address system allowed broadcast of what transpired to the whole village. This was an added bonus for information sharing and to draw everyone to the program activities. The night program for the children was then followed with a video movie for the whole village, another popular activity to end the night for everyone who finally went to bed at around 11.30 PM after the movie.

On the last day of the workshop, a field trip was organized by the Forestry Division to enable participants visit a loggers operation. This opportunity allowed us to show clearly to the village leaders and church ministers how the business operators were exploiting the natural forests of the villages for huge profits. The field visit also demonstrated clearly to the village leaders that they were only receiving negligible monies for their invaluable resource which has taken years for trees to reach the sizes being harvested. The outcome of the visit in our view, proved invaluable for the village leaders concerned. It opened their eyes for the first time on how manipulative and exploitative the business operators have been with them, and they now understand another meaning of partnership, a huge injustice which is quite different from the genuine and equal meaning of partnership they know.

Workshop Certificates Awarded: Certificates were issued to participants after full attendance throughout the three days duration of the workshop. This was most appreciated and valued by them. For many village leaders, this was the first time they received a certificate in recognition for their invaluable contribution to the workshop, not done in similar workshops run by government departments they attended in the past. A copy of the certificate is attached to show how professional this was done with the logos of the organizations involved, signed by the President of the OLSSI on behalf of SFOE/P and OLSSI and the Head of Forestry for the Samoa government.

Salailua Village Request a Workshop: Because of the great success of this workshop, the participants from the Salailua village requested that OLSSI organized a similar workshop for its peoples as soon as possible. They were very anxious that all its peoples receive the benefit of the important information they have learnt at this workshop. Salailua village was recently approached by business interests to cut its forest. It was therefore crucial that all the village peoples understand and appreciate the full conservation message promoted by the workshop. OLSSI is now looking for funding assistance to deliver on this important request from Salailua. If SFOE/P is able to help, this will be much appreciated.

Parallel Workshop Held for the Women of Aopo Village: A lady Board member with florist skills and experience in flower arrangements, development and management of flower gardens, also utilized her skills and knowledge to run a parallel workshop for the village women in this area. This was most popular with the ladies in the Aopo village and became a captured audience paying close attention to learn these new skills useful for decoration of churches, homes, and cultural ceremonies. They also appreciated the advice given on traditional and natural management of their gardens, and encouragement not to accept the use of chemicals to control weeds in their flower patches.

Causes Identified in the Workshop: A number of both underlying and direct causes were identified as follows:

• Poverty in the villages have forced them to cut their forest resources for cash.

• Village leaders are not aware of the real value of their forest resource.

• Bribery and corrupt practices by the business operators force village leaders to accept their short term and 'large cash' offers in return to the communities as compensation for them to harvest their forest resources.

• Weak legislative framework which are outdated and in most cases give a heavy bias to the corporate sector and little protection of the villages as natural resources owners.

• Debts by villages on development activities often force the village leaders to use their forest resources as collaterals and allow loggers to cut trees at will. Villages do not have the capacity to monitor or assess the selection process on the trees being cut.

• National responsibilities transferred to villages such as the building of schools or hospitals push villages with limited resources to cut native forests to pay for these.

• Unrealistic penalties defined in laws and regulations which fail to distract loggers to cut only the selected trees.

• Weak monitoring systems and inadequate powers to prosecute offending loggers.

• Privatization by government of public goods such as native rainforests give the private entrepreneurs the freedom to exploit the forest resources without the appropriate controls to help protect the village communities' interests.

• Business operators taking up Matai (chief) titles in the villages with forest resources with the sole purpose of using this to give them access to harvest the forest resources of those villages.

• Village plantation roads bulldozed in the forest areas by Public Works Department provide easy and ready access by loggers to harvest the forests. This also impact negatively on rich biodiversity, extensive bird life, active hunting game, rich herbal medicine, flora and fauna, water resources, soil, ecosystems, etc. all depending on the forest cover as home and to provide for their sustainable livelihood.

• Paradigm shift in the values of the village leaders who now see merit in quick cash from harvesting forests as opposed to the long term value of the forest resources to continue to provide for the livelihood of the village peoples for generations.

• The pressure on a daily basis of cultural, social, political, traditional, and church needs force leaders to give in to the attraction of the loggers' easy cash to satisfy these demands.

• Materialistic pressures to own cars, television, refrigerators, solid homes, water tanks, stereos, good schools and hospitals, electricity, telephones, etc. contribute to the inability of the village communities to support forest conservation on an ongoing basis as these daily pressures define for them what actions they take on the utilization of forest resources to satisfy these needs.

• Availability of simple and cheap technology as well as logging equipment easy to carry around the forests make it easier for the formal loggers and the village peoples themselves to add to the forest degradation and deforestation.

• Unequal and manipulation of the partnership concept by the business interests and the village owners of the forest resources lead to the village leaders accepting in good faith the deals and contracts negotiated. At a closer scrutiny, the agreements reached are totally to the advantage of the business operators and to the detriment of the villagers and their invaluable natural resources.

• Lack of village understanding of the concept of 'ecological debt' which could lead to their better negotiating of terms with the loggers to gain a more equitable share on the value of their forest resources.

• NGOs and CSOs are not yet in a position to help the village communities understand their full potential to take control and ownership of their own natural resources, and to receive full benefit from the utilization of these.

• Climate change has led to drastic tropical cyclones and other negative impacts on coastal village settlements due to sea level rise.

• Trade-related pressure to contribute to the national GNP, foreign exchange, and GDP is an underlying cause of deforestation and forest degradation.

• Division amongst chiefs and orators of villages caused by business operators targeting key leaders to corrupt with the power of their monies lead to time consuming meetings to sort out problems whilst the logger is enjoying the free access to the forest resources harvesting it at will.

• Conflicting mandates of government departments with respect natural resources management and utilization lead to forest loggers taking advantage of the policies and the respective departments that support their operation.

• The unsustainable consumption and production patterns of the country is another contributory factor to deforestation and forest degradation as Samoans continue to exploit the forest resources with the false understanding that it will sustain itself regardless of the rate of use.

• The extensive and unsustainable hunting of bird life and wild life has contributed to eliminating a natural, effective, dynamic, and enhancing forest propagating mechanism.

• Globalization impacts in Samoa is considered another form of colonial domination. This has caused the government to devolve its service responsibilities to outside corporations and external interest of foreign direct investments not interested in the true spirit of partnership in development, but use the opportunity to gain huge profits from the exploitation of the country's natural resources such as forests.

• There has been no recognition for forest stewardship council certification in Samoa leading to the public not being made aware of this important pre-requisite with respect procurement of environmentally approved processing of forest products.

• Developed countries will use the provision provided in the climate change convention under the clean development mechanism to continue greenhouse gas emissions in return to reforestation through plantations which are not accepted as forests.

• The taro (basic food crop for Samoans) leaf blight disease of the early nineties which devastated all taro plantations in the country helped reduce the deforestation process as farmers were not able to cut more forests to make way for land to grow taro.

• Forest fires as a result of extended periods of drought are more of a direct cause but underlying to this is the issues of climate change which interferes markedly with the normal cycles of rainfall patterns.

• The traditional practice of customary land acquisition where one can claim ownership to newly cleared native forest areas for agricultural or livestock purposes is another cause for deforestation and forest degradation.

• Land use and land use changes on forestry areas is another cause.

• Population pressures on land and settlements is another cause when people move inland from coastal villages to open up new virgin lands of forests to live and cultivate.

• The heavy daily dependency of Samoans on firewood as fuel and energy sources for cooking is another cause which contributes substantively on deforestation and forest degradation.

• Government large scale developments targeting forestry areas which have been reserved for their rich forestry, bird life, biodiversity, wildlife, fauna and flora, as well as conservation of endemic species of trees, plants, biodiversity, etc. in these sensitive ecosystems. A new town area in the Island of Savaii proposed by the government has taken over a large area of close to 3000 acres of virgin forest already reserved is a good example. Bulldozing of roads have already started and the whole reserve concept is killed. This development went ahead without an environmental impact assessment (EIA) done. OLSSI carried out an environment assessment (EA), as government were reluctant to share its development plans making OLSSI unable to do a proper EIA, but even the findings of the EA were not heeded by the developer which is the government.

• Government as authority to monitor EIA for development, has its integrity questioned, when it ignores the EIA requirement when itself is the developer affecting large native and virgin forest areas.

• Donors themselves (banks, bilateral, multilateral, organizations) are an indirect cause of deforestation and forest degradation when they fail to apply the same standards they subscribe to in their own countries when operating in a recipient country. On issues of EIA, prior consultation with communities and resource owners, imposing business and profit oriented concepts on communities, etc. are some of the donor driven concepts not always appropriate to communities in developing countries.

President of OLSSI closes the workshop: President of OLSSI, Reverend Fepai Kolia, who is himself the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Samoa, gave a moving, articulate, provocative and appropriately most challenging address to the village leaders and participants in closing the workshop. He did say that there are existing ways, methodologies, and powers in the village councils and leaders to deal directly with the business and logging operators who are obviously trying to fool them. If the government is failing with its responsibilities to the peoples who elect them, the challenge was to the village leaders to take up the cultural and traditional authorities vested in them as resource owners to take charge and protect the resources such as forests and ensure they are receiving justice, fairness, and equity in the deals and partnerships arrangements with corporate interests they are dealing with. His offer of OLSSI to act as an honest broker to villages who need its assistance in their negotiations was accepted and appreciated by all.

Acknowledgements: OLSSI wishes to register its appreciation to the following people and organizations for their kind assistance to the funding, coordination, and support of this national workshop which has resulted in its successful outcome and valued appreciation by all the participants.

1. Global Forest Coalition for the funds which has made the workshop possible
2. Head of Forestry for his gracing us with the keynote address and opening of the workshop on behalf of the Samoa Government
3. Staff of the Ministry of Forestry for their contribution as resource persons and co-coordinators of the workshop
4. Consultants James Atherton who provided useful information for the desk review and case study for the workshop. Art Whistler and Francois Martel for their forestry work which were used as resource material for the workshop.
5. Logging Company of Andrew Ah Liki for allowing the participants to visit its logging site for its field visit
6. Samoa Visitors Bureau for allowing the OLSSI use the skills of its Samoan orator to lead the field preparatory work and the workshop delegation in to the Aopo village. Also to help facilitate the workshop through out its three days duration
7. The President and members of the Board of Directors of the OLSSI for supporting the workshop and to grace it with their presence in Aopo and some of them contribute as resource persons
8. All the resource persons for their valuable presentations
9. The villages of Sili and Salailua for their participation
10. The excellent host village of Aopo for feeding the participants, provide adequate security of the workshop, provide the school buildings as venue for the workshop, teachers to help with group work, and for the excellent village and community accommodation throughout the three days.
11. Reverend Penaia Europa for the kind and effective way he helped secure the Aopo village acceptance as host village for the workshop, and for providing spiritual leadership throughout the workshop.
12. Computer Services Limited for its support of power point projector and digital camera equipment used by OLSSI for resource people's presentations and to capture photos of workshop activities.
13. Samoa Umbrella for NGOs (SUNGO) for the use of its public address system in the workshop
14. Dion Ale, the project coordinator, who provided total commitment and excellent delivery skills to ensure the smooth running, coordination, and execution of the project activities.
15. The staff of OLSSI for their support work to the project coordinator and workshop