The Asia-Pacific region is undergoing a positive change with regard to society's perception of the importance of forests. During the past 20 years, there has been a marked increase in public awareness of the various ecological and social services provided by forests, as well as recognition of some of the ethical principles that guide and support forest stewardship and conservation. At the same time, improvements in living standards and the development of a distinct urban middle class in several countries, has facilitated the development of environmental activism. Educated and articulate groups, strengthened with staff and financial resources, have emerged as effective conservation advocates in many countries. The development and growth of a strong Asia-Pacific environmental NGO community evidences this change. For example, Tsukasa (1999) notes:
One study estimates that by the early 1980s there were about 13 000 environmental NGOs in industrialized countries, while the number of environmental NGOs operating in developing countries was estimated at around 2 230. The number of environmental NGOs in developing countries has continued to increase. Asian countries probably have the largest number of NGOs in the developing world, with the Philippines having the largest number of environmental and other NGOs in Asia, with 18 000 including some internationally prominent ones.
This rise of environmental activism has paralleled a rise in social activism related to forest management and access rights to natural resources. Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, people have begun to demand greater accountability in the way that forests are managed and, even more so, a direct say in forest management.
Undoubtedly, the key trend relating to socio-economic aspects of forestry in the Asia-Pacific region relates to collaborative forest management. Many countries have recognized that the immense pressures brought to bear on forests in populous areas mean that authoritarian styles of centralized forest management are neither appropriate, nor effective, in meeting the forest management objectives of today. Government resource constraints also dictate that centralized forest management is less effective than other means. Forest departments have increasingly found their management objectives are unreachable, or seriously compromised, unless they empower communities and stakeholders to participate in decision-making and obtain their "buy in" to specific plans and objectives. For example, Nalampoon (2002), notes:
It is evident that top-down government policy to protect and conserve natural forests failed to obtain cooperation from rural poor people who lived close to or within the forests. The policy makers do not understand and know the living situation of those forest encroachers. They are destitute - living from hand to mouth. People look at natural trees in the forest as forbidden fruit. They felt aggrieved at seeing logging companies exploit timber resources out of the forest around their villages whereas they always have been told by the government officials to conserve them. They wanted to have new houses or lumber to repair their old houses as well. But they have no right in those natural resources. Many NGOs, local communal leaders and ringleaders incited them to request the government to take part in management of forest resources. This request gained stronger and stronger support from the public and turned to be political issue that finally forced the government to yield to this pressure.
Similarly, Choudhury (2002) notes specific instances of encroachment:
During the last few years, destruction of the plantations and encroachment of the plantation sites have cropped up as a serious problem. The basic cause behind such problems is "land tenure"...... Most of such sites in the district of Chittagong and Cox's Bazaar are falling prey to fisheries, whereas those in Noakhali district are being encroached for agriculture and construction of homesteads ... These sites may be put under some sort of participatory management so that the locals can derive sustainable benefits without jeopardizing the land as well as the resource.
Many countries have mechanisms intended to increase the participation of civil society, both directly in the management of forests, and in decisions regarding policies and legislation related with the management and use of forest resources. A central plank in most national forest programmes is increased community participation in forestry.
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Box 9: Community forest management in India, Nepal and the Philippines Many of the national programmes for initiating community-based forest management in the Asia-Pacific region are very well known. In India, for example, the National Forest Policy 1988 marked a watershed in Indian forestry by recognising the role of communities in forest management and rehabilitation of degraded forests. Accordingly, Joint Forest Management (JFM) on a benefit-sharing basis was legalized in 1990. The concept formally recognizes the importance of involving local people in protecting, managing and developing forests. It envisages mobilising communities through the formation of Village Forest Committees and empowering them to manage degraded forests on a benefit-sharing basis, though without the formal transfer of ownership of forestlands. JFM involves collaboration between the Forestry Department and the local community, with a local NGO serving as an interface between people and government. Joint Forest Management has been implemented on more than 16 million hectares of degraded forests through 63 000 Village Forest Committees. In Nepal, community forestry is a major focus of evolving forest management principles, particularly in the mountains. The Master Plan for the Forestry Sector 1988 established the concept of Forest User Groups, to which the user rights of specific tracts of forest would be ceded by the government. This definition and allocation of formal management and user rights and responsibilities, to community-based groups, is designed to halt rapid rates of deforestation and degradation that arose from the absence of management in open-access forests (the "tragedy of the commons"). To date, more than 10 000 Forest User Groups have been recognized and more than 600 000 hectares of forests have been placed under User Group management. Recently, however, there has been acknowledgement that community forestry does not benefit the very poor and marginalized people. The Government of Nepal is actively pursuing leasehold forestry as a means of empowering the most impoverished. Community participation in forest management in the Philippines occurs predominantly under three (now integrated) people-oriented forestry programmes: the Integrated Social Forestry Programme (ISFP), Forest Land Management Agreements (FLMAs) and Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM). A number of other programmes have also been integrated and unified under the umbrella of CBFM. The ISFP, launched in 1982, cedes forest management and utilization rights to individual forest dwellers. Under the IFSP, local people were granted rights to seven hectares of land, with security of tenure for 25 years, renewable for another 25 years based on performance. There is a requirement to plant trees on at least 20 percent of the area, while the remainder may be used for agricultural cropping. FLMAs are production-sharing contracts entered into by the government with individual families, communities, or corporations for the management of plantation areas established under contract reforestation schemes. FLMA holders are entitled to harvest, process, utilize or sell wood and other commodities produced from the plantation. In return, they (the FLMA holders) are mandated to protect, maintain, and manage the plantation covered by the contract. FLMAs are 25-year leases, with rights of renewal. CBFM is implemented to provide more equitable distribution of opportunities, income and wealth to Filipino people. The programme allocates tracts of state forest to communities to manage. Community rights and responsibilities are agreed with the government through a CBFM agreement. About 5.5 million hectares of forests (those with cover) and forestlands (brush lands, grasslands, uplands, etc.) are covered by CBFM in the Philippines. About half of these are under Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claims or Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles. |
Box 9 shows that participatory forestry is well established in several Asia-Pacific countries and discernible trends towards greater community participation are evident in most others. Most recently, policies and legislation supporting such trends include Forestry Law No. 41 enacted in Indonesia in 1999, which incorporates forest management principles of utility and sustainability, people and partnership, and transparency and integrity. Similarly, in Cambodia, the new Forestry Law establishes the rights and obligations of forest users and includes provision for private sector and community participation in forestry.
A crucial challenge in many countries is resolving issues of forest tenure, including ownership, user-rights and common access issues. In many Pacific Island countries, for example, land tenure issues are highly complex, with systems of ownership reflecting elements of customary tenure, including tribal, clan and individual ownership. This may result in conflict in relation to commercial exploitation of forests, as well as creating management challenges, where communal access can reduce incentives for individuals to make conservation decisions. Complexities in inheritance systems also create challenges relating to fragmentation of forest resources. In Tonga, for instance, until recently, the King entitled all male taxpayers to an 8-acre allotment, which continuously fragmented landholdings. More than 60 percent of the country's land area is held in allotments and this system limits much forestry development to small, scattered woodlots.
A substantive issue in many countries remains the marginalization of forest-dwelling ethnic minorities. In many instances, these groups are living as shifting cultivators, without formalized access rights to forests or land. Many Asian countries are implementing programmes to encourage transient people into permanent settlement. In Lao PDR, a primary government concern is to stabilize shifting cultivation, which is presently practiced by more than a quarter of the population. The government is attempting to provide sustainable land-use and job opportunities for shifting cultivators. A central plank in national participatory strategies in Lao PDR is a form of community forestry known as Village Forestry. The Village Forestry concept facilitates people's participation in forest management with varying degrees of intensity. By early-1998, Village Forestry implementation covered about 145 000 hectares. Much of the land allocated under the Village Forestry programme is non-commercial or barren forestland, which is handed over to communities with few resources and little training. Consequently, the programme is presently struggling to contribute positively to forest management. An encouraging development in 2002 was the preparation of the Sustainable Forestry and Rural Development Project, which recognizes the potential of villagers as forest managers and partners of local government forestry staff.
In India, tenure issues for forest dwellers reached a crisis point during May 2002, when the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued a notice to all State and Union territories, to summarily evict all encroaching forest dwellers (Box 10).
In Viet Nam, a National Programme for Upland Development aims to increase income levels of upland households, through improved land-use practices and the development of infrastructure. The Programme is developing agroforestry techniques and specific development projects, for which the driving force comes from farming households. The programme seeks to couple improved land-use practices with improved standards of living, thereby linking the interests of the country with benefits for local participants. In 1994, a decree concerning the allocation of land to be managed by individuals, households and organizations was promulgated. This allocation programme, a key plank in the country's push towards sustainable forest management, has seen the management of more than five million hectares of forestland devolved to one million Vietnamese families.
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Box 10: The Supreme Court of India and the "Encroachers" The Supreme Court (SC), in WP No. 202/1995, which has come to be known as the "forest conservation case", while dealing with the problem of deforestation and its causes, reviewed the issue of forest encroachment, that is, illegal or unauthorized occupation or cultivation of the forestlands. The issue came to the notice of the SC, when the amicus curie in IA 703/2001 mentioned that one of the major reasons for decimation of forests is the growing extent of encroachments. The problem of encroachment was highlighted with reference to some of the eco-fragile regions in Andaman and Nicobar, West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, and Assam. The SC instructed the Chief Secretaries of these states to indicate the steps to be taken by them. Taking a cue from this, the MoEF immediately sent a circular of May 3, 2002 to all states and union territories to evict all encroachers by September 30, 2002, even though the SC had not ordered eviction of encroachers. Naturally, the country and the forest dwellers were outraged. Source: Centre for Civil Society, 2003 |
Gender-based issues continue to be of major significance for forest-dependent communities. Often the challenges for forest dwellers are intensified by isolation and cultural factors. These challenges encompass many aspects, such as gender-specific roles, labour, health, education, and political participation. In some areas, the advent of opportunities for seasonal and permanent out-migration and resultant gender-based and youth-based impacts are significant. Particularly in South Asia, the out-migration of men to urban centres, to earn supplementary remittances, leaves women as heads of the household for much longer periods, while often retaining a cultural dependence on absent men to make key economic decisions. At the same time, women are disadvantaged owing to limited access to credit, livelihood extension, and other services.
In many parts of Asia and the Pacific, the "greying of rural communities" has also become a significant social issue, as young people migrate to cities and the forestry (and agriculture) labour force ages. In Japan, for instance, there are notable challenges created by difficulties in attracting young people to work in the forestry industry. Tending and harvesting programmes in private cooperative forests are lagging due to labour shortages, and labour productivity is declining as the average age of the workforce escalates.
