index 

AFRICA

Benin:

Community-Based Forest Management in the Igbodja Forest

In most of the African countries, claims concerning community-based forest and natural resource management have arisen as a reaction to the repressive nature of natural resource laws inherited from Colonial times. Forestry laws in force in the post-Colonial period compromised local community rights to forest ownership. Licences and other forms of taxes so far unknown to local communities were imposed to control the exploitation of forest products that the local inhabitants had had free access to previously, either for their domestic consumption or for marketing.

With the increase in the population, the demand for arable land also increased. In the Igbodja region, four communities occupied the forest, mainly composed of Tchabê peoples. These welcomed other peoples from the South and the North (the Fon, the Ahoussa and the Peulh), which in turn set up twenty more communities. The struggle for survival then became increasingly difficult. Forest destruction has been aggravated over the past years by the numerous population seeking a means of living, without respecting minimum conservation rules.

To palliate this situation the authorities of ACTION Plus NGO, after obtaining economic support from the IUCN Dutch Committee to carry out a study on this forest, encouraged the inhabitants of the zone to launch activities aimed at implementing community-based forest management.

In order to initiate the population in community-based forest management and management of other natural resources, needs were identified and participation was planned and work was done on awareness building; visits to the stakeholders were made and agreements and protocols established with a view to obtaining the greatest local participation possible in this process. The identification of the real owners of the land was an important step. The local populations are going to carry out surveys to prepare a plan of the zone covered by community-based forest management. In the framework of the study on endogenous flora and fauna, the inhabitants participated in the plantation of 15,000 stands of Senegalese Khaya. The village of Igbodja, bearing the same name as the forest, will make available to the population a community space of 5,000 hectares to initiate true community-based forest management. The other four villages are still at the discussion stage but we believe that each village will have its own space integrated into community management. Additionally, all have their own nurseries.

The breeding of hedgehogs (Thryonomys swinderianus) has started and beekeeping has been introduced in two villages to halt the frequent plant fires in the region.

In order to carry out this project, it is necessary to be able to read the texts of laws. For this purpose, a literacy programme in the local language was set up, involving 60 people per village, with a total of 300, directed by local teachers.

At present, latent conflicts are related with degradation of agricultural biodiversity. Large-scale, non-native roving farmers plant new areas every year, thus destroying more and more forest areas. The native inhabitants complain about the situation and threaten to throw them out. These roving farmers cannot plant trees as they are considered as tenants and tenants are not allowed to plant trees on other people's lands. In the framework of our task, all must have their own roles and nobody should be left out. The contribution of all to community-based forest management is a necessity.

From our work, it has become evident that our legislation on forest matters is inappropriate. We have approached the Forestry and Natural Resource Office officials asking them to prepare suitable laws on this matter, taking into consideration the workshops held in Gambia in 1999. A national workshop is expected to be held with the participation of all the stakeholders, including NGOs. Thus, we will be able to generalise the technique of community management and progress from being merely a pilot project. The population will then fully participate in the sustainable development of forest resources and this gap will be bridged when the mayors take on management of their respective localities as stipulated in the law, interrupting forest degradation. It is a desire that has repeatedly been expressed by the population.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.

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Cameroon:

Unequal equality between community forests and logging companies

According to Cameroonian law, both local communities and industrial logging companies have the right to obtain and manage a portion of a forest. However, this apparent "equality" is extremely unequal regarding the extension of forest lands and the legal obligations associated with tenure rights.

Regarding management obligations for instance, in the case of community forests the management plan has to be submitted before any activity starts. This constitutes a major constraint because communities face great difficulties to raise the funds to elaborate their management plans, and should therefore be authorised to at least cut a limited number of trees to finance the preparation of the plan.

For industrial logging companies the situation is totally different, as can be identified in the two existing concession models: "ventes de coupe" and UFAs (unité forestière d'aménagement). The former, defined as a logging area of a maximum size of 2500 hectares to be logged within three years maximum, requires no management plan at all. The latter are 15-year renewable concessions covering a surface area of up to 200,000 hectares, and in this case a management plan has to be submitted within the first three years. However, during this period the company has the right to already start logging --without any management plan at all-- in order to secure financing for preparing the management plan! To make things worse, not a single management plan has to date been approved by the administration, although the first concession allocations under the 1994 forest law date back to 1996.

Penalties for illegal activities show a similar pattern of inequality. For instance, illegal activities by logging companies can lead to different types of sanctions, such as fines, exclusion from future biddings, or suspension of operation. However, it has so far never happened that a valid logging title has been withdrawn from a company as a result of illegal activities. For the communities, the penalties are much more far-reaching, and any mistake or infraction committed will lead to the cancellation of the community forest.

The law thus appears to benefit industrial logging, in spite of the fact that community forests have a higher potential for sustainability than commercial logging. The promotion of community forests should hence be supported as a means to ensure social and ecological sustainability. The so-called "pre-emption right" could have helped to achieve this objective, because it would have given the communities priority in their access to forests against commercial logging. Yet the draft regulation which would have established this right to the benefit of the communities has not yet been signed.

In its study on the Cameroonian forest sector (October 1999), the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department points at the same direction when it states that "the international logging companies that dominate the sector continue to have a free hand in the development and use of the forest resources of Cameroon. Local communities were left out of the reform process despite the declared objective to include them in forest resource management."

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 48, July 2001

Development of Community Forests

Community forests are a new kind of mechanism of progressive local community responsibility for forest and forest resource management. So far, thirty-five community forests have been allocated by the Ministry of the Environment.

The results of management models developed so far have been discrete and limited, and experience is fairly recent. Most of them are still at a learning stage.

On a social and cultural level, the model developed in community-managed forests in the region is one of partnerships. Following some questioning, this model has recently reached a certain degree of stability, with the exception of the Bimboué forest, where it is subject to conflicts that are progressively being solved.

The main advantages of such a model are the following: the functionality of the partnership model, the beginnings of an improvement in the habitat, children's education, learning through action, dissemination of the activity, the capacity to defend their rights, the strengthening of minority communities (the Baka, women, etc.).

However, problems do exist: the communities' model of organisation, in spite of its relevance and functionality in the local sociological context, remains foreign to local social structures which hold attributions and power regarding natural resource management (incompatibility of the present model of partnership with the endogenous form of representation and the social structure, much incomprehension due to the appearance of new structures in the villages as the communities do not recognise themselves in the model developed, non-integration of women in decision-making).
From an economic standpoint, the management models developed had both positive and negative impacts. For example, they facilitated the creation of jobs in the village --with a subsequent reduction in rural exodus-- the payment of debts, the strengthening of a forum, the training of local experts and technicians, the beginning of a process towards improving the habitat, the construction of chapels, health help and care, the building of outpatients clinics, etc.).

However, various problems arose at that level: current financial management of income generated by community forests is not sustainable. It is not based on any scientific management system. Most of the activities undertaken with financial income generated by exploitation of community forests do not respond to income management planning prepared prior to the arrival of funds in the communities.

Most of the actions undertaken so far were not initially foreseen in the simple management plans and are not always aimed at a community objective.

Finally, on a technical and ecological level, two technical approaches to exploitation have been used so far in the community forests: industrial exploitation and artisan exploitation.

Industrial exploitation has been carried out by the Bimboue community (East Cameroon) in collaboration with forestry companies selected by the directors of the association. Through this modality, they were able to exploit the timber potential of the community forest and generate funds for use in community works. However, this means of appreciation of community forest resources suffered many setbacks, mainly due to conflicts of interests and of power regarding the management of income from logging. It has been prohibited by the forestry regulations presently in force.

Artisan exploitation is presently the sole and unique form of exploitation practised in community forests. For example, it is operational in five community forests in Lomié in East Cameroon. Most of these forests are implementing a second contract with the beneficiaries, however in some cases such as that of Ngola, they do not have a formal contract with the partner. The first contracts were not performed for various reasons: non-compliance with deadlines for payments, poor use of the timber logged, ridiculously low prices for the cubic metre of timber, insufficient training of local technicians.

Progress made was: respect for the minimum diameter of exploitation, existence of monitoring commissions, protection of multiple use essences (wild fruit-trees and others), family exploitation of non-timber forest products and of the fauna, the preparation of an inventory covering 100% of the area open up to exploitation, community participation in prospecting, short-term contracts with partners (3 months), training in basic forestry techniques, an isolated case of manual opening up of roads, transportation of timber on men's heads.

The problems are: lack of materialisation of external boundaries; lack of respect for boundaries (related with the method of partner exploitation); weakening of the monitoring commission in some communities; lack of control over exploitation of non-timber forest products; awareness-building does not always achieve the expected effect (risk of not carrying out rotation); prospecting plan not available in the community context; absence of a programme; sacrifice and risk associated to transportation of timber on men's heads (risk of accidents); lack of data on other resources (non-timber forestry resources); lack of a hunting plan for fauna management (fauna exploitation continues on an individual and domestic basis).

However, in spite of the limitations found in the process, real enthusiasm is observed on the part of local communities. This enthusiasm reflects the increasing desire of village communities to participate in forestry resource management and in this way, through forest management, contribute to improving their living conditions.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.

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Côte d'Ivoire:

The sacred forest, a community protected area

The village of Zaïpobly is located in Southeast Côte d'Ivoire, in the western outskirts of Taï National Park. This park covers an area of 454,000 hectares and is the largest remnant of the original humid tropical forest in West Africa. It was designated Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978 and was inscribed on the Natural World Heritage List in 1982, because of its extraordinary specific wealth and because of the numerous endemic species inhabiting it. At the beginning of the last century it was a uniform forest zone, but agricultural systems of cultivation introduced later and over-exploitation of the forest have reduced it to the present small forest islets.

Most of these relict forests have survived because they are considered to be sacred. A sacred forest is a place that is venerated and reserved for the cultural expression of a community. Access and management are governed by traditional powers.

The sacred forest of Zaïpobly is located in the eastern hinterland of Taï National Park, it covers an area of 12.30 hectares and is unrestrictedly accessible to all, however the flora and fauna are strictly protected. The forest is very much linked to life in the village of Zaïpobly, on the southern border of the forest. For village dwellers, the forest fulfils many functions: it serves as protection, provides them with medicinal plants and food and is a place for the conservation of flora and fauna. It creates a favourable damp microclimate for rural activities in the surrounding fallow lands, it is a place for important socio-cultural meetings and serves as a last living testimonial for future generations of what a true forest is.

The main actors within the village society involved in conserving the sacred forest are:

Kwi society, originally a jurisdictional and police institution, but lately more the latter, as a result of the disintegration of traditional structures, the introduction of new religions and changes in mentality; traditional authorities, depositories of knowledge; the grass-roots community, on which the success of the system depends.

The daily administration of the forest falls on the Kwi society; they also exert psychological dissuasion over the population. Traditional authorities are the prolongation of the founding ancestors and they are responsible for deciding on a site being considered as sacred. They are finally responsible for the sacred site and are its moral guarantee.

Impoverishment of society, progressive soil erosion, introduction of other ways of thinking and of production, and monotheist religions (Islamic and Christian) opposing the practice of traditional rites, judged to be diabolical, have contributed to weakening the sacred forests and therefore are factors threatening their existence, because the establishment and protection of sacred forests are mainly based on local cultural and religious beliefs.

It has been shown that traditional systems of African culture, far from constituting an obstacle to environmental protection, are the best guarantee in the protection of ecosystems and conservation of biodiversity. And this experience shows that sacred places can become real biodiversity reserves in the African continent. For this reason many Africans are conscious of the importance of safeguarding and re-valuing the communities' cultural knowledge, showing that Africa knows how to organise itself to care for what is precious.

At a time when globalisation is swallowing everything up and converting it into merchandise, it is timely to look at these examples, where biodiversity, the forest, is seen in a wider dimension than that of its mere components. This makes it possible to establish a link and it would be healthy for each society to re-edit it, from the position of their history and culture.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 60, July 2002.

Steady if Hesitant Movement Towards Devolution

Key trends among the plethora of early participatory forest management (PFM) developments have been observed. These include increasing empowerment of local communities in forest management, and emergence of these populations as a cadre of forest managers in their own right. It has been noted that this stems in part from local demand, crystallised through participation. It also arrives through recognition by forestry administrations of the heavy and perhaps needless time and investment incurred through sustained operational roles themselves and/or supervising community roles.

Whilst some programmes have begun with power sharing in mind, most have come to this position through learning by doing, and increasingly, some degree of observation as to what works and does not work in neighbouring states. This manner of transition has been quite evident in the changing character of projects in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, Burkina Faso and Mozambique. It is likely to continue as PFM practice continues to refine. This may well include programmes in Zambia, Ghana and Ivory Coast where committees so far established are more for consultation than sharing decision-making, naming of those efforts as 'joint forest management' notwithstanding.

Indisputably, the flagship of this transition (and PFM overall) is the Community Forest. As already observed, the construct is most developed in Cameroon, The Gambia and Tanzania but the construct exists more widely and with increasingly legal definition. Whilst the overall notion of 'community forests' is fairly consistent around the continent, its development is still curtailed in a range of ways.

First, for example, whilst most communities define the community forest area themselves, in some states, limitations are placed upon its size (Cameroon).

Second, declaration of Community Forests is almost everywhere accompanied by important socio-institutional developments at the community level, in the form of variously constituted bodies, mandated to implement the forest management plan agreed to or devised by community members.
Third, whilst community tenure, albeit of usually a customary and unregistered nature, is implied, formal recognition of this is still rare and/or expressed in ambivalent terms. A main exception is The Gambia where a formal transfer of tenure is integral to finalisation of a Community Forest.
Fourth, in both legal and operational terms, fully autonomous community jurisdiction is rarely attained.

Most Community Forests come into being only with and through the formal agreement of the state and under terms largely set by it --the case even in The Gambia. In countries like Nigeria, Burkina, Faso, Togo, Malawi, Ghana, Benin and Mozambique, recognition of local tenure is conversely overlaid by quite stringent state control over how the forest is actually used. Nonetheless, Community Forests represent a significant departure from twentieth century forest management practice and related classification of forests. Inter alia, they open the way for a widening range of gazetted non-government forest estates.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.

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Eritrea

Sustainable forest use threatened by government policies

The Western Lowlands of Eritrea are the easternmost extension of the Sahel, lying between Eritrea's border with the Sudan and the Eritrean/Ethiopian highlands. Their hills and plains are mainly covered with semi-desert scrub and savannah woodland and interrupted by three river valleys clothed with remarkably dense woodland, some of it mixed acacia and dom palm and elsewhere almost pure stands of dom palm (Hyphaene thebaica).

Six ethnic groups live there, amounting to several hundred thousand people with their distinct survival systems characterised by flexibility to face the numerous natural and human-made plights which have played havoc in the past forty years. Major droughts and war have led to a collapse of the farming system, many deaths and mass exodus of the population as refugees. In 1998-2000, the Lowlands were invaded by Ethiopian armies.

At all times, forest products play a crucial role in people's livelihoods. All the tribes rely largely on the forest to meet their subsistence needs (housing, tools and some food) and dom palm fibre is the principal source of cash income for the majority of the Lowland population (belonging to the Tigre, the Beni Amer and the hidareb tribes).

Also, in peacetime and when rainfall levels allow at least some cropping and herding, the poorer members of the community or those who cannot farm land --such as the many war widows-- make a living on cutting, weaving and selling palm. Also dom palm nuts are a food of last resort in the hungry season before harvests, and in drought years they become a staple food for many.

One ethnic group --the Kunama-- has a distinctly different approach to the forest. They cut very little palm for income, but collect food from twenty or more tree species. These include the dom palm and others that they value as food reserves for drought years when their crops fail: for them the riverine forests are their insurance, rather than a regular income source.

The resilience of the farming system is given by forest harvesting which enables poor farmers to survive and entire communities to face bad years. However, the agricultural extension services of the Eritrean government have collided with the traditional system, partly because of the unfounded belief that palm leaf cutting is carried out in ways that damage the tree, but mainly because the government has other priorities: the forests occupy fertile land with high water tables, which is ideal for irrigated agriculture of cash crops such as onions and bananas. Increasing production of these is a high priority for the government, in order to raise hard currency through exports, and to attract investment.

On the other hand, the local population values the forest highly, which has until now been a major factor in its conservation. They have established harvesting patterns governed by informal regulations and they have a deep understanding of the nature of dom palm regeneration and growth. These systems prevent over-cutting through restricting access and over-frequent cutting, and have for generations proven to be sustainable.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 50, September 2001

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Gambia:

A case of community forest management

Gambia used to be covered by very dense forests. However, the country has undergone a severe deforestation and degradation process. In 1981, about 430,000 hectares were classified as forests --45% of the total land area. Seven years later, the forest area was reduced to about 340,000 hectares.

Gambian forests have also undergone a degradation process that implied the conversion of many closed forests into a poor quality tree and shrub savannah category, according to the national forest inventory of 1998.

The institutional framework implemented in the 1950's, with the aim of protecting the remaining forests gave the state overall power over the national forest resources, depriving the rural population of responsibility for forest management.

In the mid-1980's, awareness grew about the state of forests and the potential of natural forest management, leading to a new approach. The Department of Forestry realised that its efforts would be futile unless local communities were committed and involved in the process. Also, that was a long-term demand by the local communities, so the change in the government approach matched with the needs of the population.

In 1990, the first community forestry interventions were implemented in what has been perceived as a process of confidence building and demand driven. Each village has to establish a Forest Committee, generally formed on the basis of the already existing village institutional structure, with representation from both the male and the female members of the community.

Traditional leaders are involved from the beginning of the process, and their participation ensures the customary ownership of the forest land by the community, helping to stem any future conflict between different villages which jointly manage community forests.

Gambian authorities recognise that the practice of community forest management is not without problems. The difficulty to create the sense of forest ownership among the villagers is the result of mistrust about governmental actions and policies. To build it up, the use of financial or material incentives is avoided. No compensations are given to the villagers for the protection and plantation work they are accomplishing in their forests. A task decided by the forest committee and executed by the villagers without external support strengthens the perception that they are the real owners of their work and therefore of their forest.

A long consultation process of the Gambian community forest management policy and legislation has reaffirmed the need to return authority for forest management to the local communities.

The undertaking has contributed to an important extent to poverty alleviation within the project area --the entire Central River Division, one of five administrative regions of The Gambia-- by the sustainable improvement of the economic revenues of the local population. The empowerment of the communities as well as their support to the Forestry Department in the management of the forest will, in the long run, also contribute to and strengthen decentralisation within The Gambia.

As the director of Forestry, Jatto Sillah, puts it: "Unlike the past, governments must start involving the population and communities in decision making, in designing and implementing programs. In order to facilitate better coordinated actions, the best tool for sustainable forest management should be 'the bottom-up approach'. In simple terms, the people should be mandated to work out their preference of resource management, and institutions (Government, NGOs) would provide the technical assistance."

The change in the approach of the Gambian authorities which has led to a combination of political will and local community participation is an interesting progress towards the sustainable management and utilisation of the forest resources, which deserves to be taken into account by the rest of the region.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 60, July 2002.

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Ghana

Ancient tradition in community forest management

A country with an annual deforestation rate of 1,71%, which in 17 years (1955-1972) lost one third of its forests and further 5,6 million hectares from 1977 to 1997, Ghana also holds ancient keys for a meaning model of forest conservation.

However, government attempts at dealing with biodiversity loss have applied a reductionist approach which has implied the establishment of protected areas at the expense of people. Experience shows that this eventually fails to achieve the proposed goal.

And the solution is out there, in old systems which until recently remained extremely effective. Long before official organisations were established to carry out sustainable forest management and conservation, there were traditional community resource management systems. A prominent feature of such systems is the setting aside of patches of forest by traditional authorities for sustainable resource use and the preservation of vital biodiversity. These areas have different names in different cultures, but are often referred to as sacred groves, fetish groves, local forests or community forests. Some such forests are designated as burial grounds for chiefs or as the home of local deities. But in most cases they are intended to protect watersheds, fragile ecosystems, and plants and animals of conservation importance to local communities.

Traditional authorities are usually the title holders of such areas, and exercise general administrative functions over them. But the management, defence and preservation of such lands are the responsibility of the entire community.
Societies issued controls and sanctions to protect them, and these reserves are intact today in places where culture and traditional religions remain strong. In such reserves, the community forests or sacred groves now support a much larger variety of plant and animal life than do surrounding areas, providing vital products and services such as building materials, timber products, fuel wood, fruits and nuts, bushmeat, snails, mushrooms, and most importantly, plants that are used as traditional medicines. Harvesting is strictly selective there, controlled and allowed only at time intervals that benefit and satisfy the entire community.

On its part, the community adheres to traditional norms and regulations governing the management of these forests, as well as local norms and beliefs governing sacred or fetish groves which prohibit harvesting forest products. Entry is allowed only on specific days or periods for the performance of rituals. Most such groves are believed to contain the "earth god" or spiritual beings that promote peace and prosperity and check antisocial behaviour, and have resulted in remnant patches of primordial forest even in densely populated areas.

However, modernisation, urbanisation and the spread of Christianity and Islam have weakened once revered traditional religions and cultures, changing belief systems in most communities. Many of these sacred groves are being encroached upon and destroyed leading to a loss of livelihood for local communities that depended on forest resources for survival.

In Ghana, sacred and community forests that have contributed immensely to biodiversity conservation are also now under serious threat. Once found dotted throughout the different vegetation zones of the country, their presence ensured that endemic species restricted to that zone were protected from extinction. Remaining reserves include, to name a few, the Buabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, the Aketenchie Community Forest, and the Akyem Community Forest at Akyem Takyiman. The Buabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary is a Ghanaian forest of global importance, home to the endangered Mona monkey and other endangered animal and plant species. It has also become a major tourist attraction, generating revenue for local communities and the nation.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 60, July 2002.

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Kenya

International campaign for the Ogiek

The Ogiek people of Kenya constitute an ethnic minority community, which has lived basically from hunting and honey-gathering since time immemorial in the highland Tinet forest area, which are part of the vast Mau Forests in Kenya, about 250 km west of the capital Nairobi. Some of them also practise subsistence farming and livestock breeding. Even though they consider themselves as the guardians of such forests and have managed them in a sustainable way, they have been forced to defend themselves against the arbitrariness of both colonial and post-colonial governments, who have ignored them and wanted to get hold of their lands. They resisted official arm twisting and threats, and several times went to court in the defense of their rights. The last chapter of this unconcluded legal controversy has been the sentence of the Kenya Appeals Court of May 2000, which stopped the government's imminent resolution to evict the Ogiek from their homeland.

Nevertheless, the authorities insist on trying to force them out of the forest alleging that it is a protected area included in the country's Forest Act. This argument is false for two reasons. From a legal point of view, the Forest Act establishes that indigenous peoples' territorial rights have to be protected. On the ground, what the government is really doing is paving the way for powerful logging companies to enter the Tinet forests, even though it now claims it is a "protected area". The logging ban in force exempts three big logging companies --Pan African Paper Mills, Raiply Timber, and Timsales Ltd.-- who are prepared to enter the forests inhabited by the Ogiek.

A group of concerned NGOs --the US-based Digital Freedom Network, the Kenya-based Rights News and Features Service, and the Kenya Land Alliance-- launched a campaign in December 2000 to support the Ogiek's fair struggle. A web site is available ( http://www.ogiek.org ), which includes a complete explanation of the situation of the Ogiek, as well as interesting links and a model letter to be addressed to Kenyan authorities asking them to stop the destruction of the Mau Forests and the harassment of the Ogiek.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 43, February 2001

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Tanzania:

Traditional knowledge in forest restoration

Forest restoration has become a necessity in many parts of the world, particularly where local communities are suffering from the social and environmental impacts resulting from deforestation. The success of this activity depends on the involvement of the communities themselves, based on their traditional knowledge regarding resource use and conservation. The following example serves to illustrate this.

The Shinyanga region lies in central Tanzania, south of Lake Victoria, and is occupied mainly by the agropastoral Sukuma people. They have provided a key tool for forest restoration, with their indigenous natural resource management system called "ngitili", which involves conservation of fallow and range lands by encouraging vegetation regeneration, particularly for browse and fodder. The Sukuma have had to deal with erratic and poorly distributed rainfall with high variability between seasons, so they have developed a response to acute fodder shortages caused by long and frequent droughts.

The Shinyanga region used to be extensively forested with dense woodland and bushland species, and good cover of understorey grasses. But, massive clearing of forests to eradicate tsetse flies between 1940 and 1965, and impacts of intensive cropping leading to clearing of land for agricultural expansion, rapidly declining land productivity, and shortages of herding labour, have prompted the establishment of communal ngitilis --with an average size of 50 hectares-- which together with individual ngilitis now cover over 70,000 hectares of restored woodland.

The traditional ngitili system of the Sukuma people provided a good entry point for forest restoration through local community efforts. Objectives of ngitili have been expanded to cover other wood products and services required by the community while retaining the original objective of providing fodder for the dry season. Currently, traditional and scientific experiences are shared in management of ngitilis to facilitate restoration of forests and improvement of community livelihood.

Ngitili areas have led to soil conservation and reduced soil erosion, consequently contributing to improvement of agriculture and livestock production. Important naturally regenerating indigenous trees are being left and managed on farm and grazing land. To ensure that the ngitili were guarded and respected, traditional law known as mchenya was applied, supervised by the village security committee.

This example proves that forest restoration is not a technical issue but one of community involvement and adaptation of traditional knowledge systems. The revitalisation of ngitili has thus contributed to improved livelihood security through the restoration of woodlands which now provide a wider range of goods and services for the local people.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 57, April, 2002.

Community-based forest management as a way forward for conservation

Biodiversity rich and varied African ecosystems, including tropical rainforests in central and western regions, were disrupted when the European powers landed and encroached on those territories. This disruption extended to customary social structures which were subordinated to a central decision-making organisation to handle regulation and management of natural resources exploitation.

Later, independent processes in many African countries failed to change this imposed centralised model. However, Tanzania is an exception. In the 1970s, during post-independence, the government began to devolve power and control over natural resources back to local authorities for community based development. Through a process of "villagization", the management authority was vested in elected local governments of village lands. The 1975 Villages and Ujamaa Villages Act, further supported by the 1982 Local Government Act, regulated the village system for community-based natural resource management encouraging common property a legal form of ownership.

According to 1998 data, out of a population of 30 million people, 25 million live within one of the 9,000 registered villages. Each village has a legal and institutional base, a defined perimeter boundary, and an elected village council --which acts as Trustee or "Land Manager" of communal village lands, and is the controlling authority over management decisions on water sources, grazing land and forests.

Village Forest Reserves cover more than 19 million hectares. A number of Public Land Forests and National Forest Reserves are being transferred to communities for management. The 1998 National Forest Policy promotes Village Forest Reserves and inter-jurisdictional collaborative management regimes between local communities; the 2000 draft forest bill goes even further providing delegation of authority "to the lowest possible level of local management", further empowering the community.

The new law sets out three types of community-based forest management:

- Village Land Forest Reserves: forest land ownership is vested in the entire village community;

- Community Forest Reserves: forests owned and managed by a sub-group of the village community; and

- Village Forest Management Areas: areas of government reserves placed under community management, not ownership.

Within this pattern, the village is the "manager" of the forest, while the central government provides technical advise, liaison between central and local governments, and mediation in dispute among village forest managers, acting as a watchdog on progress.

The restoration of the deteriorated Duru-Haitemba national Forest Reserve under the community forest management approach demonstrates the success of the Tanzanian model: the state Forest Department agreed to work with the eight neighbouring communities which began to manage the forest themselves, upon discreet management areas governed by local by-laws. The communities have successfully monitored and enforced these rules with visible improvement in the forest.

The Tanzanian experience shows a promising way ahead for a conservation pattern which takes into account power relationships and control over land - it tries to decentralise management, regulation and control-while increasing citizen participation at the community level.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 58, May, 2002.

Joint and Community-Based Forest Management in the Uluguru Mountains

Recent changes in the Forest Policy of Tanzania (1998) and the forthcoming new Forest Act which further operationalises that Policy, have paved the way for several changes in the way that forest conservation might be achieved in Tanzania, including guidelines on the development of Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) and Joint Forest Management (JFM). These changes also mean alterations in the potential roles of the Forestry Department, the local communities and various conservation NGOs.

The Uluguru Mountains cover a huge area of rugged terrain rising to over 2500 m a.s.l. located within parts of 6 Political Divisions. There are four government forestry staff with responsibility for 13 Forest Reserves on the Ulugurus, containing over 200 sq km of forest. The tops of the large mountain peaks are found in two large Catchment Forest Reserves (Uluguru North and South) managed by the Catchment Forestry Project under the central government Forestry and Beekeeping Division. These two reserves were the most important source of water in the country as they supplied water to Dar es Salaam and also held globally important biodiversity values. There are also Catchment Forest Reserves on the lower slopes of these mountains, and a few smaller forest reserves owned by the local authority and managed by the District Forest Officer through the District Council.

The project chose a focal area in Mkuyuni Division that contained part of the Uluguru North Catchment Forest Reserve, the largest (former) area of General Land Forest and some Local Authority Reserves. As these forest areas are (or were) contiguous with the forests of the Uluguru North Catchment Forest reserve they are hence ecologically similar and surrounded by people practising similar lifestyles, and it was believed that they could provide a good test area for involving local people in forest management.

As part of the project, some activities were carried out in the General Lands (CBFM) and Local Authority Reserves (JFM) in the focal area:

- a workshop on JFM involving all village leaders to create awareness amongst these leaders on environmental conservation and issues pertaining to the new vision for forest management contained in the 1998 forest policy.

- exchange visits to other parts of Tanzania where there are working examples of these management systems.

- the use of aerial photographs and field surveys enabled the forest cover to be mapped in the project area to identify the remaining forest.

- village meetings in the project area to inform participants on the environmental importance of the Uluguru Mountains, and the new changes in Forest Policy which would allow them more control over forested land in their village lands (through Village Forest Reserves - CBFM), and also allowed them opportunities for discussing with the government on user rights for Forest Reserves (JFM agreements).

- the promotion of local management authorities development.

The work on CBFM and JFM in Mkuyuni Division of the Uluguru Mountains is still at an early stage. Presently most effort is being put into getting the remaining Kitumbaku forest reserve declared as Village Forest Reserves for management by six different villages. It will be a major achievement to stop the last of the forests on the Kitumbaku/Kitundu Hills being converted into banana plantations, and to also safeguard the drinking water supplies for the six surrounding villages. Part of the boundary is already surveyed and all four villages have accepted the need for the reserve to protect their water sources through the creation of a Village Forest Reserve.

The following lessons learnt in the General Forest Lands and Local Authority Forest Reserves on the slopes of the Ulugurus have a direct bearing on the development of future JFM in the Uluguru North and Uluguru South Catchment Forest Reserves, as well as other areas:

- the most important forest areas on the Ulugurus are under the authority of Catchment Forestry who have a mandate to protect the nationally important water catchment functions for Dar es Salaam and Morogoro towns, and the globally important biodiversity values in the forests.

- it has been noted the lack of information available to design and then implement JFM in the Ulugurus. In 10 villages in one Division sufficient data were collected to move CBFM and JFM forwards over a period of three years. However, it is difficult to understand the land ownership patterns sufficiently to ensure that the agreements made with village governments will be respected by Luguru clan groups, or other land ownership and management bodies on the Ulugurus.

- mapping of Ward and Village boundaries, has shown that 50 villages border the two large Catchment Reserves within 19 Wards and 6 Divisions. The villages on the Uluguru Mountain slopes and adjacent lowlands contained a total population of around 400,000 people in 1988, and probably somewhat more than that now. The experience of defining village use zones for 6 villages within a single piece of forest on the General land indicates that defining boundaries for 50 villages within the Uluguru North and South Forest Reserves will take considerable time to negotiate successfully. Methods for marking these boundaries also need to be devised.

- the positive attitude of some local people who would like to have forest areas under their own management, to better protect the forests and especially their water supplies. However, there are also power struggles within each village between elements of village government who would like to allocate forest land for farming, and the newly created forest committees who would like to establish management systems for those forests.

Although the work at the Uluguru Mountains is still at an early stage, all means and efforts have been made since it has been initiated, to make it a success. We hope it will encourage other communities all around the world to practise similar lifestyles.
Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.

Improving forest management through joint management with communities

Many independent states have shown little interest in revitalizing local level systems of authority, which were purposely destroyed by past colonial regimes. The new independent governments, just like past colonial regimes do not like very much the idea of local political forces challenging its legitimacy. Thus, many forests became the property of the state, as in the case of Tanzania. This responsibility was assumed by the Tanzanian state despite other pressing problems like: governance, economic development, self reliance and political stability. As such meager resources were mostly directed towards these causes and managing forests was not accorded priority and they were left to deteriorate.

Much attention to reform management of natural resources like forests has focused on either increasing powers and responsibilities on the government or privatization. Rarely has attention focused on management of resources by communities or managing them as common property, been considered. Communities can achieve this aim with the help -rather than control- from the government. This is the idea being proposed in the new forest policy: making communities responsible for managing forest resources as common property, in Tanzania whenever possible.

Widespread people's participation in forest management, owning the forests as common property, is the current thinking towards forest management. Common property refer to a particular property rights arrangement in which a group of resources users share rights and duties toward a resource. This term therefore refers to social institutions, and not to any inherent natural or physical quality of the resource.

In this arrangement, a particular group of individuals share rights to a resource, e.g a forest. User rights are common to a specified group of individuals, not to all. Thus, common property is not access open to all but access limited to a specified group of users who hold their rights in common. When the group of individuals and property rights they share are well defined, common property should be classified as a form of shared private property. The property rights in a common-property regime can be very clearly specified, they are by definition exclusive to the co-owners (members of the user group), they are secure if they receive appropriate legal support from the government.

It can be noted that while the Tanzanian government and international agencies have overestimated their own capabilities for forest management, they have underestimated the value of local governance over those resources. Local communities who depend on forests for many commodities and services not just timber, are more sensitive to their protective functions and the wide variety of goods available from them in sustainable harvest. But when the governments overrule traditional use rights to forests, local communities and individual households are unable, and less willing to prevent destructive encroachment or overexploitation. In effect, these de jure state forests are turned into de facto open access. Environmental degradation can occur where there is an increasing lack of synchrony between the community and its natural environment, and the implied solution is to restore harmony to environment-society relations.

Restoring or awarding such rights to local groups would induce them to attend to the possibilities of sustainable long term production from the forests. Sustainability of forests depends on local rules, use patterns, and incentives created by international, regional, national and local institutions. Indeed, if ecological conditions are the same, major structural and biological differences between local patches of forests may be almost completely the consequence of human rules and use patterns.

Statements of intent on global environmental problems issued in the 1992 Earth Summit, including Agenda 21 and the Desertification Convention, strongly advocate as solutions a combination of government decentralization, devolution to local communities of responsibility of natural resources held as commons, and community participation.

According to the new forest policy, to abolish open access in public lands, covering more than 19 million hectares in Tanzania, clear ownership for all forests and trees on those lands need be defined. The allocation of forests and their management responsibility to villages, private individuals or to government will be promoted. Central, local and village governments may demarcate and establish new forest reserves.

Communities are best suited to manage and regulate resource use because of four main reasons, which are:

1. Empowering a community to manage and regulate the use of a resource will reduce the pressure on the resource because by the mere fact that it is owned by a certain community it will not be an open access. Potentially, there are many users of a resource e.g. a forest and if one group retain exclusive use of a resource there is high possibility that more sustainable practices are likely to be implemented.

2. A community living near a resource and depending on it for livelihood, and knowing that it will enjoy the benefits of the resource for a long time, is more likely to refrain from misusing it. People rooted in one locality which they call home, will use a resource more careful because if they deplete it they have nowhere else to go. They are different from a commercial corporation which is always on the move, and depletion of a resource in one place means moving to another place and continue with the same trend.

3. The limited resources of governments in terms of personnel and finance to police resources means that this task is better placed in the hands of local people which will do it for their own benefit with no burden of payment on the part of the government.

4. Traditional users of a biotic resource like a forest are more likely to have developed techniques which will enable them to use the resource sustainably. Other groups or companies with less knowledge of the resource are more likely to exploit the resource to extinction with the aim of short term gains.

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 64, November 2002.

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