Different groups are affected by a proposed change in forest use in different ways. The affected groups are what we call “interested groups.” If the change takes place, some interested groups will perceive negative values (costs) from the change; others will perceive positive values (benefits). Some interested groups will experience both, with the balance determining whether a group falls on the net cost or net benefit side of the equation.
The scale of a proposed change also decides to some extent which groups are included as interested groups. For example, a minute change in a small, remote area may not draw interest from national environmental groups, while a major change of exactly the same nature would do so. Interested groups are not decided by output measures so much as input/technology considerations. For example, we may be looking at changes that would add some 10,000 m3 of lumber to the national economy. If it is produced by thousands of small, independent pitsawers, we see one set of interested groups. If it is produced through a large, modern mill, we have another set of interested groups.
As a first step, we have to identify the various interested groups involved or affected by a proposed change and then define their various value perspectives that need to be reconciled in the decision process. To what extent are the various perspectives complementary? To what extent do they conflict?
As an example of typical forest interested groups, assume that it is proposed to open a forest area for logging. Obvious interested groups would include the proposed loggers, the indigenous populations that live in the forest areas, the citizens of the country or province that owns the forest, various environmental groups, and possibly the consumers of timber products, if the increased logging resulted in lower prices for consumers.
The value perspectives of these various interested groups vary along a continuum. At the extremes, some will see positive value; others will see negative value in a given change. The strength and magnitudes of the individual and aggregate values involved will vary from situation to situation. In other words, we have to not only be concerned with the unit values associated with the different interested group perspectives, but also the aggregate values involved in each instance. We also have to be concerned with changes over time, as discussed earlier
Forests are not unique in terms of having conflicting values attached to them and their uses. Different persons attach different values to all resources, goods, and services. Box 3.1 provides an example of the multiple value perspectives that can be associated with a given forest.
No matter how many perceptions of value we identify, what ultimately matters in terms of action is the value perceptions of those who actually will determine what happens to the forest. Those decision makers are the ones we need to reach with the information derived from assessments of forest values, or benefits and costs. Who are these decision makers? Forests are owned, controlled and used by many different groups. The focus here is on public forests of various kinds - forests under the responsibility of communities, regional or state authorities, or national 1 governments. However, a word of caution is needed: Sometimes, the public decision maker is different from de facto decision maker, who also may be the client for public forest policy.
For example, in some remote forests, the actual decision makers may be the slash and burn farmers on the ground, if the government does not have an effective means to control forest clearing. Thus, to deal with problems of deforestation on public forest lands caused by forest margin or slash and burn farmers, one needs to understand the economic value perspective of this latter group. (We will get back to this point.)
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Box 3.1. Same forest, different use values. As Longman and Jeník (1987:7-8) have pointed out, the same piece of forest land may be viewed by different people as:
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Often the public manager or decision maker does have reasonable control over what happens to the forest. In such cases, the value perspectives of all groups of citizens with legitimate claims on how the forest is to be used (i.e., interested groups) should be considered and weighed.
For the purposes of this discussion, we have identified four main categories of people who have differing interests in natural forest values. These are:
1. Groups with commercial interests in specific parts or aspects of the forest. These groups are interested in the market or barter values associated with uses of certain parts of the forest, e.g., timber industries and consumers of commercially sold timber.
2. Local forest dwellers with their interest in livelihood/survival values. These groups are interested in the forest as their living environment and as a source of sustenance and livelihood, e.g., indigenous tribal groups.
3. Environmental advocacy groups and nonconsumptive users. These groups are interested in the forest as an ecosystem or in saving particular species or groups of species. They also are interested in the educational, recreational, and spiritual values associated with forest preservation. The groups can be local, national, or international.
4. Migrant farmers, ranchers, and others with an interest in the land under the forest. This group may give a negative value to the trees and animals of the forests they want to clear, i.e., they would like to see them gone. To these groups, the forest is a nuisance: letting it stand involves a cost; it harbors dangerous animals; it is the home for animals and insects that attack their adjacent agricultural crops; it hinders travel and road construction; it is in the way of progress and expansion of agriculture and ranching. From the point of view of these groups, the forest grown on the underlying land they want has a negative value at least equal to the cost of clearing it. Having said the above, we also should point out that in fact the forest has a positive value to the slash and burn farmer practicing shifting cultivation with forest fallows. This is so because the forest renews the nutrients in the soil for the farmer and possibly provides outputs during the fallow period. To these farmers, the forest near their agricultural plots also may have value as a source of fuel, food, fiber, and fodder. We come back to these types of value relationships later.
One might ask why we have not identified government or the public sector as a group that has a special interest in the value of the forest. The answer is that here we consider the legitimate interests of government should be a mix of the varying interests of society, i.e., the above groups and possibly others.
It also should be the role of government to advocate the interests of the voiceless interested groups of the future, i.e., future generations of the above groups. Indeed, it is with this in mind that governments should pursue not only economic efficiency objectives, but also those associated with sustainability and equity in distribution of benefits.
Of course, in many cases government officials have their own vested interests that they follow. In such cases, they as individuals may fit into various special interest groups.
People May Fit Into More Than One Group
Confusion often arises because most individuals fit into more than one interested group. Thus, consumers of forest products, who have an interest in the monetary cost of the particular goods or services they are consuming, may also be ardent environmentalists, outspokenly advocating protection of forests against encroachment and unsustainable use. Generally, those conflicting interests apply to different areas of forest or different aspects of forest use. For example, a person may be a major consumer of forest products from the temperate forest and also an ardent defender of the preservation of the tropical forest and its biodiversity. The two value frameworks are consistent from a valuation point of view. It means that a person will be identified with one value perspective or another, depending on the specific forest area and situation being addressed.
As development takes place, people also move along the various value continua. Thus, as people move out of subsistence slash and burn farming, their value perspectives may change. They may eventually move out the group that values the forest primarily as a living environment to the group that values the forest for the commercial goods and services that it provides for the market. Similarly, local populations, as they get access to commercial medicines, may reduce the values they attach to the medicinal plants that they once collected. The dynamics of values introduce additional complications into the valuation equation, particularly in cases such as forestry, where long-term perspectives are needed.
Below we look at the value interests of each of the four major groups identified, keeping in mind the overlaps in terms of people fitting in various categories.
The Interests of Commercial Groups
This is perhaps the easiest group to deal with in terms of economic value measures. Commercial interests are concerned with the market values of the goods and services derived from the forest. For instance, loggers are interested in the value of wood, while rubber tappers and gatherers of various commercial products are interested in the values associated with their products in specific forest situations. And, nature tourism companies are interested in the values they can derive from specific routes, areas, species, etc. In parallel with these producer groups, there are, of course, the consumers of the commercial outputs - consumers of lumber, paper, gums, oils, fruits, recreation trips, etc. derived from the forest. They also have a legitimate interest in values or the prices they pay for specific outputs (goods and services) derived from the forest.
Commercial producers in their role as such are interested only in market values - what they have to pay to get the products they want from the forest, what they have to pay to process and get those products ready for the market, and what they actually obtain when they sell the products in the market. Similarly, the consumers of the vast array of marketed products from the forest are interested in market prices - how much they have to pay in the market to obtain the goods and services they want. (But remember that many of these consumers also are in other groupings with different interests.)
Livelihood and Survival Values of Forest Dwellers
For people living in or next to a forest, its value is identified with both the products derived from the forest, and with the spiritual and cultural values attached to the forest environment. More specifically, the forest provides wood, fiber, and other materials for construction of homes, storage structures, and agricultural tools. The forest serves as habitat for a wide range of plants and animals that provide fuel, food, medicines, and saleable products that sometimes generate household income and employment. It also serves as the source of water. All these functions theoretically can be assigned monetary measures of value, using various shadow pricing techniques though monetary measures are the furthest thing from the minds of most forest dwellers. Also, the forest environment or ecosystem provides the religious and social context for life and ritual, which produce many values that we should not even attempt to measure in economic terms.
Typically, use and management of the components of the forest by local forest dwellers are dictated by an elaborate structure of constraints and obligations stemming from the values placed on forest vegetation because of spiritual and cultural associations. Forests have positive and negative values in this respect: as protectors and providers and as areas - to be feared or as deterrents to development.
One recent study of a situation in West Africa summarized the balance of interests and values involved as follows:
“It would seem that [for the local people] high forest is seen to have little value in and of itself. In practical terms, the bulk of subsistence-oriented forest products derives from secondary successions, not from high forest. But the greater value placed on 'bush,' compared to high forest, depends on more than practical considerations alone. In rural Mende eyes, social life begins and ends at the edge of a forest clearing. The energy released by the conversion of forest to farm and bush is a major source of power in society... the farmer about to fell trees to make a farm... will invoke the patient understanding of the ancestors and spirits of the land for the necessary damage he must inflict on the bush. The recovery of the bush from a period of cultivation... is a sign that ancestral blessing has not been withheld” (Davies and Richards 1991).
In practice, therefore, subsistence, income, environmental, and social and cultural impacts of the forest are intimately interrelated. People's decisions are dictated by their responses to the whole, rather than by assessments of the costs and benefits of each part separately. But their focus is invariably on present local needs, not on the wider values of the forest nor its more widely diffused benefits, nor future benefits.
Much of the value of the forest to forest dwellers lies in its importance in helping to maintain stability and control risk. Users therefore focus on products, such as fruits and leaves, which are available on an annual or continuous basis. They heavily discount the values of those products, such as timber or rattan, which are available only in the future or periodically[1]. Lack of security of tenure or access tends to reinforce this focus on the short-term, secure economic values. If people have no assurance that they will have access to future harvests, they attach little if any value to them.
Access to markets will usually increase the value of a forest as a source of income for local people. However, many forest products are low value goods, and are sensitive to price and transport costs. Products such as fruits are perishable and so are marketable only locally. The seasonal nature of supply of many of these products easily results in supply/demand imbalances and a collapse in prices. Thus, there can be significant value fluctuations over time.
The ease of entry into many forest-based activities frequently leads to excess capacity and output. With improvements in rural infrastructure, the markets for many forest products are penetrated by low cost human-made or plantation grown alternatives. Though some product lines, such as woodworking and handicrafts, tend to have the potential to upgrade and become more competitive, most do not (Fisseha 1987). Many forest-based activities are thus of low value. They are vulnerable to competition or deterioration in their raw material costs. They offer only a fragile and weak basis for livelihoods, and are likely to collapse or be abandoned in favor of livelihoods that offer greater income security and prospect for growth. As discussed earlier, the role of forest products in forest fringe communities can therefore change rapidly, with shifts toward or away from dependence on the forest often occurring over very short periods. Decision makers have to keep in mind that patterns of use at any one time may tell little about future values as perceived by local forest or fringe dwellers. The implication is that analysis has to be based on an understanding of the patterns of dynamic change in use of forest products.
Values of Environmentalists and Nature-based Tourists
Environmental groups have varied interests in forests. These interests can range from a concern with the impacts of deforestation on climate change and on reduction in biodiversity and loss of species, to local concerns to maintain the aesthetic values of a forested landscape or to save a particular area of native forest. For these groups, only those uses and attributes that can be sustained over time, without causing degradation of the forest, contribute to its value. It is also argued that the existence value of an environmentally intact forest is likely to differ from the aggregate of the value of the component goods and services that can be derived from it.
Many environmentalists consider that such values are not, and cannot be, satisfactorily reflected in economic or monetary terms. Indeed they argue that to attempt to place economic values on the forest results in partial or incomplete measures of forest value that are misleading, and can result in suboptimum decisions. Thus, many environmental groups resist attempts to put the forest in a conventional economic perspective, preferring other (more qualitative) approaches to assigning its value.
Value Perspectives of Those Who Want the Land Under the Forest: Subsistence Farmers, Ranchers, etc.
For many groups, the main value they see when they look at a forest is the productive potential of the land that lies under the trees. This value - in economic terms, and from the perspective of the potential users of the land - can be measured by the capital value of the land in the other intended uses, i.e., the present value of the annual or periodic net returns from using the land for those other purposes, minus the cost of clearing the forest and planting the new crop.
For such groups, the best thing that can happen is for the government to open up forest lands for settlement or for conversion to other uses. Often, governments become interested in pushing out the “frontiers of civilization.” They provide subsidies to clear land for agricultural expansion, hydropower developments, road expansion, and so forth. These subsides become key factors in determining the economic value of the cleared land to the settler or other intended user. Naturally, such subsidies also can influence the value perspectives of various groups that want to use the forest as forest, e.g., loggers, rubber tappers, environmentalists, and recreationists.
Those who want the land under the forest oftentime prevail by influencing legislation that sets aside forest lands for settlement or other purposes. In cases where the decision to clear the land for settlement or other uses already has been made, the valuation task of the public forest manager or land manager is simpler: the manager does not have to worry about comparing values with and without the forest. If the decision has not been made, then the valuation task is to attach values to the potential losses from clearing, i.e., the opportunity costs involved.
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[1] Some recent studies have
used techniques of discounting, which provide a means of aggregating the values
attached to outputs available at different points in time, in order to express
them in terms of an equivalent hypothetical average annual flow. However, while
useful in assessing the economic value of the forest measured in market prices
and commercial values, this is not a meaningful measure of the annual value to
subsistence users or hunters and gatherers; for them, only immediately
realizable values, and the reliability of a continuous flow of useful goods and
services, are likely to be of relevance. |
