Specific Features of the Forest Sector

Before a full Directorate of Forestry was created, the whole country was administered from a tiny Division in the Ministry of Agriculture and the main forestry office was situated in Grootfontein in North Central Namibia. It had only 3 offices in Ondangwa in the North West, Rundu in the near North East and Katima Mulilo in the far North Eastern tip of Namibia. In essence, it represented a weak and centralized system of administration; a very poor combination, which was supported by fairly junior officers in the field offices. The main purpose of the field offices, was mainly to administer, timber harvesting concessions, but with no effective to oversee or facilitate the active management of the woodlands, tree planting and fire control. To date, the forest administration has a centralized system in which the Head Office performs policy making, planning and financing and other support functions, but with a network of better staffed offices in all political regions of Namibia. This describes a centralized but de-concentrated model of administration. However, the new forest policy and the forest bill have provided for greater public participation, which is tending to decentralize the function of forest management and also tenure rights to resources. As such, community organizations and local governments can now identify and manage community and regional forest reserves, respectively, to which, the local forest offices will provide technical and in some cases, material support. In addition, the whole government has adopted what many see as a progressive policy of decentralization, which will see forestry functions, which are now performed by central government, devolved to communities and regional and or local governments.

Table 4. Consumption of imported wood and wood products (Source Bureau of Statistics, National Planning Commission, Namibia)

Wood Product Category	Unit	1995	1996	1997	1998	*Projected 1999**	Total imports
Charcoal	Tons	3,989	845	587	670	683	6,773
Household and Sanitary	Tons	8,422	47,646	34,843	74,390	79,129	244,430
Newsprint	Tons	98	193	191	163	76	722
Paper and Paperboard	Tons	43,700	10,867	11,174	20,470	23,938	110,149
Fibre-, Particle-, Wafer-board		1,656	3,870	3,071	4,341	6,037	18,976
Plywood	Tons	88	450	1,023	2,329	600	4,489
Printed Matter	Tons	4,498	7,229	3,487	5,797	3,330	24,340
Pulp	Tons	90	523	358	1,313	389	2,673
Sawdust	Tons	216	708	40	234	177	1,376
Veneer sheets	Tons	180	177	152	32	218	758
Wood wool	Tons	53	43	89	17	2	203
Wrapping and Packaging	Tons	241	82	380	364	185	1,252
Chip wood	m³	4,635	6,578	7,277	15,073	12,667	46,230
Fuel wood	m³	359	357	153	343	276	1,488
Round wood	m³	1,263	2,340	2,998	4,564	4,693	15,859
Sawn wood Hard	m³	1,232	636	682	1,929	701	5,180
Sawn wood Soft	m³	3,307	3,880	4,106	6,984	8,725	27,002
Sleepers	m³	323	55	6,935	1,212	173	8,699
Value	N$	351,851,800	366,861,282	418,811,048	542,293,303	507,049,404	2,186,866,837

Table 5. Economic value of the forest resources of Namibia (Source: Modified from Forestry Strategic plan of 1996)

Product	Main species	Value (million N$)
Construction poles	Mopane	383
Tourism	Ecosystem (e.g. mopane and acacia woodlands in Etosha)	218
Fences for crop protection	Mopane	175
Firewood & Charcoal	Mopane, Acacia spp, Various bush invaders	153.4
Medicine	Various species such as devil’s claw	31.5
Homestead fencing	Mopane	31
Crafts and implements; Mahangu baskets; Carvings	Various species; Mopane	34.4
Goat forage	Various species, mainly acacia	9.5
Fencing poles	Mopane	6.6
Food & Beverages	Marula oil, Various species, Manketti kernels	6.3
Basketry	Hyphaene spp (Makalani palm)	4
Commercial logging	Pterocarpus (Kiaat), Baikea (Rhodesian teak)	2.4
Mortar and pestle	Various hardwood	1.5
Ornamental roots	Mopane	1.1
Mopane worm forage	Mopane	0.5
Total Economic Value		1058.2