0471-C1

Communities as Forest Managers and Owners: Community Forestry in the Gambia

Ulrike Bongartz^[1], Alhagy Cham and Christian Schade

Abstract

After a period of government claim over the forests and thus interference in the traditional tenure systems, the late 1980s can be marked as the beginning of participatory forest management in Africa. As governments began to realize their shortcomings in managing and protecting the resource and to recognize the possible contribution of the forest to economic development on the African continent, the need for a change in Forest Policies and Legislation became evident to allow people's participation in forest management.

The Community Forestry (CF) concept of The Gambia is the flagship of the new Forest Policy of 1995 and the Forest Bill of 1998 respectively. Promoting community empowerment, the concept foresees an ownership transfer of forest land from the State to an interested community. This land and tree tenure based on customary rights should motivate the people living near the forests to protect and ensure the sustainable management of their forest as a permanent source of income and livelihood, as well as contributing to the poverty alleviation efforts of the Government of The Gambia. The participating community has to go through a training and probation period, which is then evaluated and the final aim is the reservation of the forestland as a gazetted Community Forest.

The first results in forest protection and development prove the importance of the acknowledgment of customary rights and the involvement of the rural population in the management of The Gambia's forests.

Introduction

In the postcolonial era the forest policies and the legislations on the African continent focused on the forests as a source of timber. The resource was still abundant, thus the dependence of the rural population on the forest products was not colliding with the governments' efforts to reserve forestland for a centralized management.

With the growth in population and with that an increase of pressure on the forest resource, the governments were not longer able to protect their reserves. Their supreme efforts to stop the deterioration of the forest by demarcating areas with exclusive user rights for the government and by regulating the utilization in the formerly open access forests, created an atmosphere of alienation between the government and the rural population. To satisfy their basic needs of forest products the people had to either obtain permission or to become illegal intruders on their traditionally owned land.

The recognition of the forests' contribution to social and economic, especially rural development was first officially stated in the Jakarta Declaration in 1979 (BHARGAVA 1993) declaring, "forests are for people". This new orientation resulted in the development of various strategies of participatory forest management (PFM). The conceptual progress was followed by a review of the Forest Policies and Legislation in many countries, to legally establish the different PFM concepts.

The recent analyses even look more in depth into the role of the communities, comparing approaches where they are either seen as users, managers or owners (FAO 1999 and ALDEN WILY 2002).

The Gambia's forestry sector has undergone a significant development from total State control towards participatory management concepts. As one of the first countries in Africa having introduced the Community Forestry (CF) concept nationwide, The Gambia is also leading in terms of evolution of jurisdiction with the total transfer of ownership of forestland from the State to rural communities (ALDEN WILY 2002).

The main idea behind the trend towards more rights for the communities is, that "one protects and handles carefully what one possesses". The conditions and implications of an indefinite registered land and tree tenure for the communities will be critically reviewed in the context of the second National Forestry Policy, the 1998 Forest Act and Gambian Forest Management Concept (GFMC).

Results

Forest Policy

In 1995 The Gambia revised its first Forest Policy, dating from '79, with the beginning of the participatory approach to forest management. The early nineties marked an obvious shift with the start -up of the CF concept and thereafter the development of the GFMC (see Box 1).

Box 1: Milestones of forestry sector development in The Gambia (SILLAH 2002, adapted)

"The Gambia's new Forest Policy has been developed in line with the environmental and socio-economic policy objective of the country's program for sustained development. [...] It has also been designed to recognize and contribute to the poverty alleviation effort of the government by calling for the involvement of the private sector and local communities in the management and development of a healthy forestry sector." (FORESTRY DEPARTMENT 1998)

Two of the three major policy goals have been formulated as:

"To ensure that 75% of forest lands are managed and protected according to forest management principles in order to increase forest resource base."

"To ensure that sufficient supply of forest produce needed by both urban and rural population is available through the rehabilitation of forest lands (...)."

(FORESTRY DEPARTMENT 1998)

For the support of the quoted goals the following policy orientations will promote (among others):

"community ownership and management of forest land to:

- increase awareness and willingness of the rural population to protect forest resources,
- ensure active participation of the public in management of community forests,
- ensure that significant benefits are realized from the forest by the community,"

(FORESTRY DEPARTMENT 1998)

The policy requirement to realize these objectives is as following (among others):

"To develop in consultation with the population, community forestry regulations able to guarantee community ownership of forest. To ensure the non-conversion of community forests to other forms of land use that would be in conflict with forest management, as well as a sustainable management of community forests." (FORESTRY DEPARTMENT 1998)

Forest Bill

The supportive legislation, The Forest Act, has been reviewed and finally approved in 1998 (see Box 1). The quoted requirement has been fulfilled with the sections concerning the Community Forestry concept (Forest Act, Part VII Clauses 58-72 and Part XII Clauses 112-115 Part V Clauses 36-38 and Part X Clauses 82-84 and Part XI Clauses 94, 97 and Schedules I, II)

The main steps towards the conclusion of the ownership transfer from the State to a community are presented briefly in the following:

· Preliminary Community Forest Management Agreement (PCFMA)

An interested community has to go through the start-up phase for obtaining the PCFMA and being registered with the Forestry Department. The requirements are the formation of a committee, the preliminary survey of the land, a statement of the neighbouring villages to preclude any other claim and the preliminary three years management plan.

· Community Forest Management Agreement (CFMA) and Gazette procedure

To obtain this document the community has to prove in a three years probation period management capability through the implementation of the preliminary management plan. Together with the Department of Lands and Survey (DL&S) the final survey of the designated CF will be conducted and a map will be produced by the DL&S.

The Secretary of State (SoS) will thereupon publish a notice in the gazette specifying the forestland which is intended to be reserved as a CF. This notification has to be made known to all persons concerned. If after a period of three month nobody has raised an objection against the upcoming designation, the CFMA will be signed and the SoS makes and publishes a respective order, which establishes the land as a legally reserved Community Forest.

Status quo

Presently 5175,8 ha (status 31.12.01) are under the management of 44 committees with a pending CFMA conclusion. The procedure of gazette notification and order is in progress and the final order for the first 23 Community Forests can be expected in due course.

Thus the base for the discussion is nevertheless given, because the communities with a positive evaluation are working more or less independently.

Discussion

The importance of "the tenurial factor" (ALDEN WILY 2002) is estimated very high for the success of community based forest management and it is expected to become even more often the crucial factor in the negotiations between governments and forest adjacent population. After now about ten years of Community Forestry implementation in The Gambia it is time to discuss the factor's real impact on the success of the CF concept.

The consequences and implications of the ownership transfer

1. Devolution of authority

With the conclusion of a CFMA between the Forestry Department and a Forest Committee authority and ownership right over a forestland are transferred to the community. The agreement sets a clear frame for the further management specified in the Rules (THE GOVERNMENT OF THE GAMBIA 1998).

The Rules define the community as the body who determines the management of the forest by developing and implementing management plans. The limiting factor is the Forest Legislation, which can be specified by formulating by-laws. The FD nevertheless controls the community-based management, since the by-laws have to be endorsed by the local authority and as well as the management plans approved by the FD.

Although the terms of the CFMA have been set by the FD, it has not been developed at the administrative level and been opposed on the population, but contrarily evolved from the participatory pilot phase (see Box 1).

The FD will never withdraw fully from the Community Forest management but its function changes from decisive to consultative by providing technical assistance and monitoring field activities. With the increasing capability of the community however the FD shall be ideally left with controlling the management in accordance with the Rules. (SCHINDELE 2001).

Being the authority the community gets fifty percent of all fines collected after a penalty for any offence in the CF. Included in these proceeds are "(...) fees specified in the by-laws payable on any forest produce removed or damaged (...)" (THE GOVERNMENT OF THE GAMBIA 1998).

2. Tenure security

The procedure of gazette notification and order guarantees the indefinite ownership "as long as the laws and the agreements are observed" (BOJANG 2000). However, if the participating community does not fulfil the duties, the FD can revoke the granted rights after an evaluation of the committee's performance proving inappropriate management and the subsequent gazette procedure of de-reservation.

Prior to this the CF concept also foresees the "Statement of neighbouring villages" which takes into account the customary side of the tenurial factor. The participating community has to confirm with the other forest adjacent villages that they do not have any customary claim over the proposed land.

3. Sustainable management of the resource

The CF has to be managed and utilised according to a five-year management plan, which is the base for annual work plans defining in detail the activities. These restrictive guidelines are necessary since the rural population of The Gambia consists of rather farm than forest managers. Even the idea that the resource 'forest' might need a real management instead of just a bit of protection is quite new to them. Until the capacity of the participating communities is built up, the FD should supervise the activities in the forest.

Apart from these formal requirements to ensure technically the sustainable management of the forest, ideally the community should have all the concern to protect and develop their property in a sustainable way.

4. Poverty alleviation

As formulated in the policy orientations the community ownership of forestland is established to "ensure that significant benefits are realized from the forest by the community" (FORESTRY DEPARTMENT 1998). Therefore the field forest officers advice the interested communities to chose valuable and promising sites for Community Forests instead of reserving these all for farm cultivation. Since the picture of the forest has changed from a simple source of firewood, fruits and other products to an asset for their future, the communities can be convinced to rethink the traditional way of land-use distribution.

According to the Forest Act section 36-38 (THE GOVERNMENT OF THE GAMBIA 1998), the community has to establish a Local Fund, administered by the Forest Committee, in which eighty five percent of the proceeds of sales of forest products have to be paid. The money is foreseen to contribute to forty percent to the forest development and to sixty percent to be used for village development activities. The remaining fifteen percent go into the National Forestry Fund to contribute to the national forest development.

Constraints

Looking at the large number of villages, which have passed the evaluation but are still in an informal CFMA status, it becomes clear that the administrational procedure towards the gazette order carries some problems.

The reasons for the delay lie in the complicated process relying not only on the FD, but also on the SoS, the DL&S and the Attorney's General Chamber.

These different stations make the procedure very susceptible for various problems on the administrative level. However, every step can be seen as essential, if the tenure security for the participating communities is considered important. Nevertheless after the expected first official conclusion of a CFMA the bottlenecks of the procedure will be identified and improvements made.

Another crucial point is the balance between the community's authority and the involvement of the FD. Although the community is trained during the probation period in all management skills, even after the three years most of the villages still need close assistance from the FD. As a "core element" (SCHINDELE 2001) of the CF concept yet the training of the villagers seems not to be sufficient.

Conclusion

The objective of introducing CF in the established form is, "that through it, local communities recognize the value of trees and forests and gain vested interest in their protection as permanent sources of income and/or livelihood. The purpose of CF is thus to contribute to the protection and maintenance of an adequate national forest cover and slow down and eventually stop environment degradation." (SCHINDELE 2001).

In terms of participation and commitment by the communities the concept can only be judged successful. The people recognized the efforts of the FD to guarantee ownership over a forestland and thus contribute to an increased standard of living of the rural population. They took the chance to reserve valuable sites as Community Forests in order to take it under their care.

The participatory pilot phase and the subsequent elaboration of the concept made it possible to meet the concern of the population and the FD. The first examples of Community Forestry management are very promising in terms of sustainability and contribution to economic rural development.

The FD has already identified the few constraints pointed out in the discussion and suitable solutions are up coming.

The future development of the Community Forestry in The Gambia will allow a closer look on the sustainability of the concept and a deeper analysis of the determining factors.

The call for a review of forest policies was implemented in a very thorough manner in The Gambia. The outcome is one of the most advanced forest legislation on the African continent. The regulations on the community authority and the applied control by the FD on the designated forestland are well balanced and meet both, the people's needs today and in the future as well as the concern of the FD to protect and develop the forests in The Gambia. In some cases and what can be called the major achievement, the communities have taken over the latter already.

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