4. Linking Livelihood Approaches, Sustainable Forest Management/NFPs and Poverty Reduction /PRSPs

According to the Forest principles developed at the UNCTAD Conference in 1992, Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is “the management of forest resources and forest lands in a way which ensures that the goods and services derived from the forest meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations”.

National forest programmes are recognised through the IPF/IFF proposals for action as important means for addressing forest sector issues in a holistic, comprehensive and multi-sectoral manner, and thus promote SFM. In this context, national forest programmes (NFPs) are seen as the ongoing forest policy dialogue occurring in various forms in most countries.

On the other hand, in recent years, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPS) have increasingly become the national frameworks for tackling poverty at national level, and also the basis for country assistance programmes by many cooperation agencies.

Finally, despite their weaknesses, livelihood approaches seem to provide a good starting point to assess and appraise situations where pro-FBPR interventions are envisaged.

Based on the above, the greatest need for capturing the potential of FBPR strategies may be for:

A policy and legal framework that legitimises access to capital assets and increases bargaining power of the poor in that respect;

National strategies and action plans that clearly and adequately link NFPs to PRSPs;

Much more work on the interface between SFM and SLAs, and in particular on the operationalisation of inter-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approaches;

One first step in that direction is to recognise the diverse nature of rural livelihoods. In particular, this would require forestry to be considered in a land use perspective – dynamic over time - with sustainable forest management (SFM) as one amongst several sustainable livelihoods options for the poor. One key consequence of this would be that forest changes such as deforestation should not necessarily be seen as negative per se. The right question in this case would be: who wins and who looses from deforestation, with a particular emphasis on the poor;

Finally, development of local governance[1] mechanisms (both formal and informal); which ensure use of this bargaining power by the poor, and the necessary capacities to sustain these Given the importance of informality in the livelihood strategies of the poor, both formal and informal governance should be considered.

Figure 3 attempts to illustrate the above points, and notably the fact that, without good governance capacities and enabling policies, bringing together the requirements of SFM and those of sustainable livelihoods as a key condition for forest-based poverty reduction, is likely to live short of expectations.