To describe the goods and services coming from Namibia’s forest sector, it should be borne in mind that Namibia’s often vast forests or woodlands are not gazetted and exist in the so-called communal areas characterized by open access rights even though communities within a given locality can claim ancestral rights over a given region. So far only 160 000 hectares of the Pterocarpus - Baikiaea forests in the Caprivi is in a state forest reserve. In this regard, traditional authorities have had a big role in land allocation and adjudication and often had set rules on the use of forest products and for other important uses such as grazing and even conversion of forests to cultivation fields. In the virtual absence of designated and legally protected forest reserves, the consumption of forest goods and services does not translate into government revenue except commercial timber concessions on a few tree species over which the government has the right to collect royalty regardless of where they occur in the communal areas. What it means is that know the goods and services that come out of Namibia’s forest resources, the directorate had to make an assessment to find out the type of goods and services and put some economic value on the ones that are used by the public.
Construction poles. This is one of the most important uses since the provision of shelter is a cardinal requirement for human survival. Since construction poles are largely extracted from forests and often not traded in the open market, their economic value however huge, are commonly overlooked.
Crop protection fences. This is another traditional use of small stems and mostly thorny branches to fence crops in northern Namibia. The rains are often unreliable and when they come they may not last longer than 50 days. Once crops germinate and start growing and given that this is a dry area with lots of free ranging livestock, cropping without protection against herbivores is a huge risk. A fence is therefore crucial and has a direct contribution to crop protection and should therefore be assigned its rightful economic value.
In another form homestead fencing is culturally valued by people in north-west and north-central Namibia and can consume significant amounts of poles measuring 20-30 cm in diameter which under the dry conditions are fairly large stems.
Firewood. Firewood is the most predominantly used energy source in most households. Namibia has a growing charcoal manufacturing industry but it is mainly for the export markets in South Africa and Europe.
Commercial logging.
This has been going on for many years starting from the early 20th century when tamboti (Spirostachys africana) poles were harvested in the Tsumeb area in the north-central Namibia to supply the rich copper mines. Soon after, timber concessions for the harvesting of kiaat (blood wood) Pterocarpus angolensis were awarded to supply local and South African joinery factories.
Wood for art and crafts.
The art and crafts industry is an important “cottage industry” which luckily relies on Namibia’s rapidly growing tourism industry. Its importance is easily understood but not often credited to the forest sector. Wood curving is still seen as a cultural rather than a viable commercial enterprise. The wood is often supplied from forest areas and since this is a commercial activity, which uses the main commercial timber species as well, the artists have to obtain harvesting licenses from the Directorate of Forestry for which royalties are charged.
Mopane roots. The species Colophospermum mopane, produces a shrubby form under rocky ‘calcrete’ soils and the superficial roots and often stunted stem growing over the rocky grounds often produce deformed but attractive pieces which are harvested, the remaining bark sand-blasted, making decorative pieces put in fish tanks and other arrangements. These are harvested and exported to Europe and Asia.
Services
Wooded ecosystems. The most important service is in the form of habitat provided for Namibia’s wildlife, which is the basis of Namibia’s tourism industry. In this regard, the mopane woodlands of Etosha Park, the riverine or gallery forests along the ephemeral rivers flowing to the coast through the Namib Desert are good examples. It is important that even if the forest service is not directly reposnsible for protecting the forests in wildlife parks, those trees are also protected by the forest act and their value ought to be recognized in putting value to our wildlife resources. This is often overlooked.
Goat forage, mopane worms, food (nuts and fruits). Goat forage is important in the livestock industry and the continuing protection of huge woodlands is contributing a lot to the healthy livestock industry. Mopane worm is a traditional and now becoming a gourmet delicacy in up market restaurants. Furthermore, in some parts of Namibia such as the Northwest where the San people live they still depend on gathering nuts from tree species such as Guibourtia coloespermum (false mopane), Schinzophyton rautanenni (mangeti) and several other fruits from species such as Strychnos. These form a formidable part of their susbsistence and food security. In the more agricultural parts of Northern Namibia the cultivator-pastoralist cultures also harvest fruits and nut producing species such as Sclerocarya birrea (marula), fruits such as Berchemia discolor and species of Strychnos. Sclerocarya and Berchemia have a good potential for greater commercialization.
It is important that services such as carbon fixation,
environmental amelioration and soil conservation have not been included.
In 1996 during the strategic planning process, an attempt was made to put value on what were considered to be the main goods and services from the forests and woodlands that have been described here. It was not possible to put quantities on all the goods and services produced from the forests and woodlands of Namibia. However indirect substitution values were put on certain products and services. These values have already been presented in Table 5 in Chapter 1 of this report. The total value of the forest resources was estimated at Nam$ 1058.2 millions per year. It should be noted that based on a survey in 1997 and 1998 the value of charcoal produced per year was estimated to be worth Nam$ 124 millions; a figure less than what was estimated in 1996, without a detailed field study. The author believes that the lower figure is closer to the actual value than the 1996 figure of Nam$ 150 millions. Using the 1996 figures and recent estimates on timber, fuel wood and charcoal production the quantities of goods and their respective values are as follows:
|
Forest Goods |
Quantity per Year |
Monetary Value (N$,000,000) |
|
Construction poles |
not estimated |
383 |
|
Fences for crops |
not estimated |
175 |
|
Firewood |
700,000.00 tons |
104 |
|
Charcoal |
*14,000.00 tons |
20 |
|
Timber |
5,000.00 m3 |
10 |
|
Homestead fencing |
not estimated |
2.4 |
|
Mopane roots |
1000.00 tons |
1.5 |
|
Arts and crafts |
1000m 3 |
34 |
|
Medicines |
|
31 |
|
Food (nuts and fruits) |
|
6.3 |
|
Mopane worms |
|
1 |
|
Services |
|
|
|
Ecosystem (habitat) - For Tourism |
|
218 |
|
Goat Forage |
|
9.5 |
|
|
|
|
* 15,000 tons of charcoal consumes about 75,000 tons of wood
During the last 5 years, the forest service has undergone a period of rapid development of infrastructure in the form of office construction and recruitment of staff to manage newly created offices. A number of donors have also assisted the government in several activities such as scholarships, policy review, forest resource mapping, forest inventory, and pilot activities such as fire management, community forestry and nursery management training. Since very few forest areas, except for fire and commercial harvesting controls, are under formal management regimes, it will not be easy to estimate just what the resource requirements are to manage the forests sustainably. The point is that the current levels of human and financial resources are inadequate if we have to properly manage the forest resources of Namibia. The resource requirements for the major forest areas of northern Namibia include:
The top management consisting of the director, deputy directors and chief foresters needs a total of 10 well-trained and experienced professionals who should hold the minimum of a bachelor’s degree.
The management of field operations needs 14 professional foresters
The research division including the national remote sensing center and inventory and planning unit requires 17 professionals with an MSc degree as a minimum qualification.
The technical cadres of technicians and rangers require a minimum of 24 technicians (national diploma certificates) and 32 rangers (vocational certificates).
The current levels of support staff and unskilled labour, are sufficient for the sector to perform if it gets the full complement of its technical and professional staff.
The forest service also needs the support and personnel of various organizations in Namibia
The National Botanical Research Institute has a comprehensive herbarium a number of scientists specialized in biosystematics, ecology and elements of conservation.
The University of Namibia, which does not run a forestry programme would however, be useful collaborators in research through their faculties of science, agriculture and natural resources
The Desert Research Foundation also has useful information on desertification and runs a programme on bush encroachment, which the forest sector is interested in.
Starting from our own ministry, the ministries of agriculture, regional & local government, lands and resettlement are also important collaborators in the field.
In our extension effort, the ministries of education and information are crucial.
The inputs required to manage the forest sector are in the form of funds to cover operating and development costs. The recurrent budget takes care of personnel costs and covers expenditure of a routine nature incurred in administration, fieldwork to gather data and information, maintaining data bases, conducting farm inspections before issuing harvesting permits, creating and maintaining firebreaks, purchasing vehicles and so on. The development budget on the other hand is used to construct infrastructure such as buildings, develop new technologies, to support special projects with a potential to provide goods or services. In addition to the government’s budget, the sector receives donor support, which tends to operate as development projects with the hope that new developments will become routine activities taken up under the governments recurrent expenditure. The bulk of their expenditure goes to technical personnel and their associated provisions such as vehicles and field costs to cover project activities. Recently, there has been limited activity in the private sector in forestry. The main private sector operations include a wood-manufacturing factory in the Caprivi Region, and the informal arts and crafts trade, which is growing but not well monitored to provide reliable data.
The current levels of inputs in financial terms is presented here in a simplified format and it reflects the current levels of recurrent and development expenditure from the government and its donor partners.
Institution |
Main Activities |
Annual Budget (N$, 000) |
||||
|
1996 |
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000 |
||
|
Government |
Policy, legislation Forest management Forest protection Forest Extension Development |
10,694 |
11,298 |
13,540 |
13,786 |
15,799 |
|
Donors |
Support to Government In development programmes and projects
|
8,624 |
17,715 |
14,655 |
15,685 |
14,770 |
|
Total |
|
19,318 |
29,013 |
28,195 |
29,471 |
30,569 |
The current outputs in the form of goods and services from the forest sector are reflected in Table15. However, these estimates will further be validated when the sector fully adopts and assesses the 5 criteria and their associated indicators for sustainable forest management in the Namibian dry zone forestry context.
A distinction that ought to be made is that today, the only output which the forest service is directly responsible for is commercial timber. Even then, the annual sales is insignificant compared to the economic value from construction poles and fuel wood. In the Namibian context the outputs from the sector is not the amount of wood productions from industrial plantations or huge commercially exploited natural forests. Instead the value of the sector is seen from the direct use values derived from the forests by Namibia’s majority, the indirect values in the form of ecosystems, the use of wood to protect agricultural fields and so on. If we consider these values in total and weight them against the amount of resources the public forestry sector consumes, then we can say that the administration and management of Namibia’s forest resources is paid for the benefits from the sector.
Viewed from the local supply of commercial timber alone and given the fact that the consumption of industrial wood and wood products, including paper and products was worth a hefty figure of N$500 millions in 1999, one can deduce that the import bill for the wood and its associated products, is financed by direct earnings from other sectors. In this sense, one could argue that the forest administration is subsidized.
However, the financing of the import bill of wood and wood products is matched by the current estimated value of Namibia’s forest resources, even though the goods and services are not traded in the formal market (Table 15). The forest administration only directly controls or protects the forests from which goods such as poles, firewood, crafts, timber and fencing materials are extracted. The estimated value of all these is approximately equal to the total import bill for wood and wood products in 1999.
The above argument however needs a regular system of accounting for the economic contribution of the forest sector as was attempted on table 15.
Given the political support that the forest sector enjoys in Namibia, and given the elevation of the sector’s administration to a directorate in 1990, the sustainability of the current national programme has a sound policy backing. The allocation of resources to manage the sector has therefore a strong policy backing but tempered by economic conditions of the country. Since the sector is in the process of strengthening its direct role in Namibia’s economy and since the accounting for the sector’s contribution is becoming clearer and clearer, the current levels of resource inputs to the sector are sustainable. This has been explained the forestry outlook paper for Namibia up to the year 2020, which envisages a greater economic role of the sector, especially in reconstituted wood products, improved arts and crafts, industrial oils from indigenous fruits and an expanded and sustainable charcoal and industrial carbon industry.
Even though the contribution of the forest sector is based on goods and services not traded in the market and even if they are, no regular attempts are made to record them, it is still possible but not useful to calculate input out put ratios. It is however safe to state that with the current level of inputs into running the forest sector by government, private sector, non-governmental organizations and community groups, the value and benefits of the forest sector to society far outweighs the resource inputs to manage it. The value of firewood estimated at about N$ 124 millions is enormous compared to the N$ 30-40 millions used to manage the sector annually.
