0190-C1
Marilyn Headley 1
In recent years, community participation has become a fundamental strategy in developing and implementing national and regional forest management plans the world over. This paper documents the Jamaica Forestry Department's attempt to engage local communities in participatory forest management.
Trees and forests have always been important, providing essential products and services, at the local and national levels. This means that many people and interest groups have a stake in how forests are managed, hence, one of the biggest challenges facing managers of forest lands is how to incorporate the views and desires of diverse groups of forest users into forest management decisions.
It has become widely accepted that participation of local people is a prerequisite for sustainable forest management and it is recognised that involvement in forest management must provide real benefits, based on local and national needs.
A pilot programme was launched by the Forestry Department (FD) in 1999 with the aim of organising local forest management committees (LFMCs) as instruments through which communities would become involved in the utilisation and management of nearby forest reserve lands. This paper documents the experience, to date, of the FD's attempt to engage local communities in participatory forest management. It gives a description of the pilot area; sketches out the enabling forest policy; describes the setting up of the committees; discusses their roles and functions and those of the FD; and issues and challenges.
In 1992, Phase II of the Trees for Tomorrow (TFT) Project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Government of Jamaica (GOJ), was initiated with the goal to increase the capacity of the FD to manage and conserve forests and tree crops for the sustainable benefit of the people of Jamaica.
During Phase I of the Project, the Buff Bay/Pencar Watershed Management Unit (WMU)2 was selected as the pilot area to develop the methodology for biophysical inventories, socio-economic and agroforestry baseline studies, mapping, forestry extension, and preparation and implementation of a local forest management plan as well as to train FD personnel. The area was selected after evaluating social, environmental and forest criteria for all the WMUs in Jamaica. Activities in the pilot area began in 1998 and the groundwork to establish a local forest management committee for the Buff Bay/Pencar WMU got underway in 1999.
The Buff Bay/Pencar WMU is located in the north-eastern portion of Jamaica and encompasses 20,258 hectares, rising from sea level to 1600 metres at Silver Hill Peak, in the Blue Mountain Range.
The population of the pilot area is estimated at 30,700 with the majority of settlements stretched along rivers and major roads. Farming is the main occupation for the majority of households, however families usually have more than one source of income, e.g., marketing of farm products combined with wage labour, usually on large coffee farms.
Approximately one-third of the land in the Buff Bay/Pencar WMU is in agriculture. Perennial crops, other than coffee, are common features of farming systems in the watershed. Every farm grows a variety of fruit trees such as mango, breadfruit, avocado pear and pimento, usually dispersed on the land or combined with coffee in a mixed agroforestry system.
Scattered but numerous timber trees are a feature of farm landscapes. These trees were not necessarily planted by the farmer but were left for shade or timber purposes when the land was cleared. Where timber trees have been planted, Honduras mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), West Indian cedar (Cedrela odorata) and Blue mahoe (Hibiscus elatus) are the most common species.
Approximately 75 percent of the land in Buff Bay/Pencar WMU is privately owned while the balance constitutes public lands. Forest reserves amount to 2815 hectares or just under 14 percent of the total watershed area.
Since the early 1990s the Forestry Department, with the assistance of international agencies and the GOJ, has embarked on new paths for development. The Forest Act, enacted in 1996, promulgates the appointment of "a forest management committee for the whole or any part of a forest reserve, forest management area or protected area" and lists the functions of such a committee:
The five-year National Forest Management and Conservation Plan (NFMCP), prepared by the FD and adopted by Cabinet in July 2001, proposes community participation as a key strategy in national forest management.
In 1999, two Rural Sociologists - one from the TFT Project and one from the Forestry Department, two Extensionists, and FD field officers began an intense programme of community outreach activities in the pilot area. It included presentations about forests and the environment, farmer training days, development of agroforestry demonstration plots, and school programmes. The FD's private planting programme, which provides free timber tree seedlings and technical advice as incentives to landowners and farmers to plant trees on their property, was the central component of the outreach programme.
The favourable reception by Buff Bay/Pencar communities to the FD's programme of activities was a key factor in the decision to begin developing a participatory forest management process with local communities in 2000. The work was guided by an internal position paper (Forestry Department 2000), prepared following discussions with national and parish-level agencies and organisations, feedback received by the FD field staff from area residents and farmers, and guidelines provided in the Forest Act, 1996.
Since the Buff Bay and the Pencar valleys of the watershed are geographically separate the position paper proposed that separate committees be formed for each sub-watershed. Issues identified for discussion included:
The FD held its first discussions with potential LFMC members in the Buff Bay and Pencar areas at separate meetings in September 2000. Considerable interest was expressed by individuals and representatives from local organisations at both meetings and resulted in an endorsement for the establishment of a LFMC for each sub-watershed. A joint meeting of stakeholders from the two areas, to which government agencies with an interest in watershed management were also invited, was held in October 2000. At the second meetings of the two committees in November 2000, officers were elected and rules of procedures were established. The LFMCs were officially launched at a joint meeting on December 1, 2000.
The FD's position paper on the establishment of LFMCs proposed there be no limit on the number of persons serving on the committees and that membership be open to all community groups, organisations, NGOs and private sector entities present in the Buff Bay and Pencar sub-watersheds. At the initial meetings, the groups decided on a structure like that of other community based organisations with which they were familiar. The FD's legal officer prepared draft constitutions that LFMC members reviewed, finalised and adopted during meetings in early 2001.
The position paper also proposed that, in the early stages, the FD serve as the Secretariat for the committees and provide the necessary technical advice and support to assist the committees in their functions.
Since their establishment the Buff Bay and the Pencar LFMCs have held regular meetings bi-monthly and joint meetings every six months. Membership in the LFMC remains relatively stable although attendance levels at meetings fluctuates. A recent review (Geoghegan and Bennett 2002) of Jamaica's experience with LFMCs noted that the meetings have demonstrated the interest of local people in obtaining harvesting licences for timber in the forest reserves, involvement with reforestation and serving as honorary forest wardens. The FD's private planting programme has been identified by local people and the FD field staff as being very effective in increasing local environmental awareness and benefiting farmers. The private planting programme is also seen by the FD as an incentive to promote further involvement in forest related activities and participation in local forest management.
Input by the LFMC into local forest management is primarily through the forest management plan for watershed. The two most important roles initially proposed for a LFMC was to provide assistance relating to the development of, and to monitor the implementation of such a plan.
Production of the forest management plan for the Buff Bay/Pencar WMU took longer than expected due to the large number of data analyses required. A draft was completed and presented to LFMC members at a joint meeting in February 2002. It became clear that the draft forest management plan, which includes complex analyses and recommendations for prescribed land use, is too technical for most non-foresters. A decision was subsequently taken by the FD to prepare a simplified or "popular" version of the plan to facilitate participation by LFMC members in implementation.
Community groups will remain active and hold together as long as there is something on the agenda for them to focus on. In the absence of a local management plan, the FD and LFMCs looked at ways for local communities to benefit from their involvement in forest management. This has resulted in the Pencar LFMC establishing a plant nursery on land leased to it by the Forestry Department. The FD field staff helped the Pencar LFMC put together a project proposal which was successful in attracting funding for nursery construction from the CIDA sponsored "Enhancing Civil Society Project".
Working with communities has not been a part of traditional forestry activities in Jamaica and foresters were not trained in this practice. The pilot work in the Buff Bay/Pencar watershed, beginning with community outreach activities and leading to the establishment of the LFMCs, has contributed to the development of a core group of FD staff who are highly committed to participatory approaches. In addition, the success of the extension programme and of the LFMC initiative has resulted in most senior staff accepting the need for more participatory approaches.
As noted by Geoghegan and Bennett (2002) there was no local demand for the establishment of LFMCs. These were conceived as one of several strategies to support the implementation of the NFMCP and were proposed to local stakeholders as a FD initiative. Interest to participate in a local forest management committee was garnered by developing outreach activities that reflected issues raised by local people during community meetings with the FD. Farmers in the pilot area are aware of soil loss from heavy rain; communities in the upper parts of the watershed have experienced landslides and their consequences; and some communities are concerned about the quantity and quality of water available at certain times of the year. Given the culture of mistrust of "government", particularly in rural Jamaica, it is an indication of the success of the extension programme that, despite the somewhat uncertain role of the LFMC, people wanted to co-operate with the FD in developing a local forest management process.
The FD remains the active force in the functioning of the LFMCs. There has been some decline in attendance at LFMC meetings since their official launch more than eighteen months ago. The lack of a focus for the LFMCs (the Local Forest Management Plan incomplete) as well as a clear definition of the role of the LFMC in the implementation of the local plan are seen as contributing factors to the declining interest. At this time, ensuring that there is some degree of assurance that the FD considers the expressed wishes and opinions of communities with respect to how local forests are managed and utilised is based on the mutual trust between the LFMC members and FD field officers.
The FD recognised and acknowledged that in return for "the participation and co-operation of communities", they "will be able to derive sustainable economic and environmental benefits from planned forest use" (Forestry Department 2000). LFMC members have indicated that in addition to the watershed protection benefits of "planned forest use" they are also interested in direct economic benefits such as harvesting timber, particularly in the pine plantations.
The establishment of the Buff Bay and Pencar LFMCs carried a high cost. The sensitisation and awareness programme included attendance at more than eighty community and group meetings to present the LFMC concept in the four months leading to the official launch. Peoples' willingness to listen was a direct result of the groundwork laid during the FD's outreach activities between 1999 to 2000. The heavy investment in personnel time, travel/transportation costs and other expenses was supported through the TFT Project, as part of the overall activities being implemented in the Buff Bay/Pencar pilot area. The experience has shown the FD that trust building and over-coming scepticism of government is essential to developing working partnerships with communities. LFMCs are proposed to be established in other parts of the country however, given budget constraints, it will be a challenge for the FD to duplicate the success of the Buff Bay and Pencar LFMCs.
In the short-term, the delay in finalising and implementing the Buff Bay/Pencar Forest Management Plan has left the LFMCs without a clear focus for their meetings. In the long-term, sustaining the interest of LFMC members will be an ongoing concern. The absence of a strong basis for group action means that the FD will likely have to continue in its role as a catalyst to bring together people and organisations to address the forest agenda. The Pencar nursery project and the proposed Buff Bay eco-tourism venture are encouraging first steps in developing economic opportunities based on the forest resource, and the FD will be exploring with the LFMCs the modalities for the sustainable harvesting of the pine plantations to maximise retention of benefits within the watershed.
Recent developments in FD's experience with the LFMCs have shown the difficulty in achieving balance in a relationship between an agency such as the FD and groups it has involved in a participatory process. The success of the FD in facilitating the functioning of the LFMCs appears to have inadvertently fostered a culture of expectancy for the FD to take the lead in all aspects of LFMC business, regardless of whether forest activities are involved. Given the disparity in the organisational strength between the two groups, the development of this expectation is not surprising and highlights the need to clearly establish, early in the relationship, the responsibilities and obligations of the "facilitator" in such relationships.
National level policies may affect the future of LFMCs. A policy shift by Government in recent years to a more participatory approach to development planning has focused attention on strengthening parish-level governments by establishing Parish Development Committees (PDCs). LFMCs support this process, however questions have been raised as to whether they will be duplicating the efforts of the PDCs. The future of LFMCs will also be influenced by the watershed policy (draft) which proposes that local watershed management committees be established in all the WMUs. The broader mandate of these committees would subsume the forest reserves lands that are the focus of the LFMCs.
Financial and administrative sustainability is an ever present issue as the Buff Bay and Pencar LFMCs struggle to establish themselves as viable, effective and representational organisations. While there is increasing vocal support for the participatory management approach from Government, financial support for local stakeholder involvement in planning and decision making processes remains the purview of bilaterally funded development projects. The FD does not have an "extension" budget, and given the annual budget cuts, the existence of the LFMCs is uncertain following the end of the TFT Project in 2004.
Although the elucidation of a defining role for the Buff Bay/Pencar LFMCs is far from complete and issues of sustainability are unresolved, the FD's experience with participatory management has been positive and is a process to which the FD is committed. The response of local people to the FD's activities in the Buff Bay/Pencar watershed has shown that "working with ommunities" can work. The emergence of clearly quantifiable benefits lies some time ahead but future initiatives with communities in the watershed are likely to benefit from the relationships built up through the establishment of the LFMCs.
Bennett, Noel. 2000. Participatory forest management in Buff Bay/Pencar. Internal memorandum, Forestry Department, Kingston, 16 p.
Cunningham, C.C. and Arthur Limbird. 1993. Watershed selection study. Trees for Tomorrow Project, Forestry and Soil Conservation Department/Canadian International Development Agency, Kingston, 14 p.
Forestry Department. 2000. Position paper: Formation of a local forest management committee for the Buff Bay/Pencar areas. Forestry Department, Kingston, 7 p.
Forestry Department. 2001a. National forest management and conservation plan. Forestry Department, Kingston, 100 p + 8 Appendices.
Forestry Department. 2001b. Buff Bay/Pencar watershed management unit, forest management plan. Forestry Department, Kingston, 121 p + 6 Appendices.
Geoghegan, Tighe, and Noel Bennett. 2002. Risking change: experimenting with local forest management committees in Jamaica. Caribbean Natural Resources Institute Technical Report No. 308, 34 p.
The Forest Act, 1996. Government of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica Printing Services (1992) Ltd.
International Institute of Tropical Forestry. 2001. Possibilities and approaches toward community forestry in the Caribbean. Proceedings of the tenth meeting of Caribbean foresters at Georgetown, Guyana, June 13-16, 2000. Compiled and edited by Blanca I. Ruiz et al. USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, 118 p.
1 Conservator of Forests, Forestry Department, 173 Constant Spring Road, Kingston 8, W.I., Jamaica. [email protected]
2 For land use planning purposes Jamaica is divided into 26 watershed management units. Each unit contains one or more watersheds.