2.1 Population pressures
2.2 Structures of production
2.3 Why are so many of the "Reserved Forests" of Asia treeless?
2.4 Landuse planning
Table 1 presents information of areas of forests and woodlands, rural populations and forest areas per (rural) capita in Asian countries. Without wanting to imply some deterministic relationship between forest policies and forest per capita, it does seem that forest policies reflect socio-economic priorities that are fundamentally different, between those countries with larger forest resources/capita (Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Laos, for example) and those with very low ratios (e.g. Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines).
Table 1 Area of Forest & Woodlands, Rural Population and Forest area/capita, in Tropical Asia
|
Country |
Forest Area (000 ha) |
Rural Population (000) |
Area/cap (ha/person) |
|
South Asia | |||
|
Bangladesh |
927 |
89139 |
0.01 |
|
Bhutan |
2140 |
1300 |
1.65 |
|
India |
64200 |
572955 |
0.11 |
|
Nepal |
2121 |
15612 |
0.14 |
|
Pakistan |
2480 |
72490 |
0.03 |
|
Sri Lanka |
1659 |
12710 |
0.13 |
|
Southeast Asia |
231400 |
294565 |
0.79 |
|
Indonesia |
116895 |
124294 |
0.94 |
|
Kampuchea |
12648 |
6498 |
1.94 |
|
Laos |
13625 |
3024 |
4.51 |
|
Malaysia |
20986 |
9543 |
2.20 |
|
Myanmar |
31941 |
28571 |
1.12 |
|
Papua New Guinea |
38175 |
3011 |
12.68 |
|
Philippines |
9510 |
33276 |
0.29 |
|
Thailand |
15675 |
41393 |
0.14 |
|
Viet Nam |
10110 |
47871 |
0.21 |
|
ASIA |
304927 |
1058771 |
0.29 |
|
Tropical LDCs |
1771181 |
1436077 |
1.23 |
Source: World Resources Report (1991)
Westoby (1987) argued that ultimately, the purpose of all forestry is social. He differentiated between Industrial Forestry (well-suited for relatively resource rich countries to contribute to economic development, employment creation, foreign exchange earnings) and Social Forestry (to maintain rural welfare or "to stop it deteriorating further" through provision of basic needs). He might have added that Environmental or Protection Forestry (including watershed and wildlife management) is equally important to both groups.
National Forestry Policies nearly always have recognised all three elements, but the relative emphasis or balance keeps changing. Most societies would like more of all three classes of forest benefit, but governments have many other priorities and do not have unlimited budgets. Is it possible to get some more of each, through greater skills, technology or efficiency, rather than trade-off one against another?
A spectrum ranges from those countries struggling to provide basic needs from their forests, to those with ample resources for economic development and export industries. Fast growing fuelwood or industrial plantations may complement either strategy: to move from deficiency to self-sufficiency to exportable surplus; or to compensate for the progressive phasing out of logging in natural forests.
At the risk of over-generalisation, we might consider a spectrum where the relative emphasis changes as follows:
|
Philippines |
|
|
Bangladesh, Nepal |
Social Forestry, Extension, Devolution of management for remnant forests |
|
China |
|
|
Pakistan, India |
|
|
Viet Nam |
|
|
Thailand |
Fast Growing Industrial Plantations |
|
Fiji |
|
|
Indonesia |
|
|
Malaysia |
|
|
PNG |
Extraction from relatively abundant natural forests |
|
Laos |
|
I stress that this is not simply a question of population size or density relative to areas of forests, but too many people without decent alternative livelihoods. In many parts of Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Viet Nam, China and Thailand, the economy has not grown fast enough and in a way that creates enough employment opportunities. (Cruz, 1992) Being a forest encroacher, eking out a marginal and illegal existence is not an attractive occupation, but a strategy of last resort when no better options exist.
Perhaps the opposite illustrates the point better. In Malaysia, with rapid industrialisation, rural people are moving out of the villages to work in urban industry. In fact there are shortages of rural labour in particular times/places. Malaysia's forests are now relatively safe from encroachment for the same reason as in the USA or Australia - most people have better (more secure, more profitable, less dangerous) ways of making a living!
There is a myth about rapidly disappearing forests in Nepal's Middle Hills, but in reality, the forests are starting to expand, in both area and density. As alternative occupations in the market economy appear, basic agriculture in the Hills has become less attractive. Also, as people migrate to the Terai, population pressure on the Hill forests is in fact decreasing. A dramatic decline in livestock numbers has greatly reduced the demand for forest fodder. Terraced land that has been cultivated for many years is being allowed or encouraged to revert to forest.
It may be correct, but too simplistic, to observe that forests have disappeared because of population growth, increasing pressure for land for agriculture and settlement, for timber and fuel, and "inadequate protection and inadequate afforestation". Why could the pressures not be accommodated? Why were past efforts "inadequate"? The whole question of the behaviour of poor rural households, in their production, consumption, livelihood and migration decisions, requires further research. Some Forestry agencies assume that they understand such behaviour, but in many cases this is contradicted by their programs' ineffectiveness. Small and marginal farmers are sometimes thought of as a plague of locusts bent on destroying trees and forests, but in many cases, these people are actually major producers of trees and even supplying towns with their excess fuelwood from their own household trees.
Trees and forests can be managed in many ways, and numerous possible institutional arrangements exist in the Asian region (e.g. ownership of forests; responsibility for their management; responsibility for harvesting; and responsibility for processing and utilisation can all be by the State, private or, communal). The appropriate form of forestry, the appropriate structure of production, the question of who is responsible for what in the forestry sector, cannot be isolated from national macro-economic and historical factors. Again, it would be nonsense to argue for a single "correct" system, but we may learn from analysing the performance and implications of systems in use.
Outlined in Table 2 below are some of the attributes of two widely differing systems. Characteristics of a particular system depend on who is managing it - the attributes within each system, are intimately and intrinsically related to each other.
Table 2 Two Production Systems
|
|
State Forestry |
Community Forestry, Tree Husbandry and Farm Forestry |
|
Objectives |
One dimensional, raw material for industry, protection |
Multipurpose and socio-economic objectives. Related to the consumer & Producer. Self-reliance. |
|
Technology |
Imported, centralised, precedence over local technologies. Uniform and strictly adhered to |
Varies. Indigenous, locally manageable. Imported technology must suit resources and needs. |
|
Local Institutions. |
Unimportant as long as no encroachment |
Important. Used and supported as a resource. |
|
Peoples Participation |
Insignificant. People are target groups and consumers and to be motivated, uplifted and/or employed. |
A requirement for relevant production. People are a resource, an asset to be supported. Involvement and responsibility |
|
Role of People versus Experts |
People are the problem experts the solution |
People are the solution and a resource. Experts support them and their activities & the development process. |
|
Local Solutions |
Uniform |
Diverse |
|
Land |
Government |
Communal. Village, private. |
|
Labour |
Employed |
Employed within the local system or self-employed. |
|
Organisation |
Centralised "work order" system |
Local, village production unit (e.g. extended family). |
|
Professional Sphere |
Segmentation, "Forestry" |
Integration with other farming activities. |
|
Structure and Magnitude |
Few large plantations with uniform management. |
A large number of small areas with a variety of input requirements and production. |
|
Legislation |
Protective |
Productive |
|
Time Perspective |
Long Term |
Short term, or limited resources for delayed benefits. |
|
Relation to other activities |
Separate |
Integrated in space and time in the small farmers' production system. |
Source: Ohlsson & Byron, 1989
Many government agencies, even if established explicitly to manage many small areas of mixed forests for a wide array of public benefits, have tended, over time, towards:
concentrating on fewer, larger areas;managing these according to uniform prescriptions, rules or guidelines;
managing for one or two dominant outputs rather than diversity (and the dominant output is likely to be wood because it is readily quantifiable and marketable).
All these attributes are entirely predictable, given the nature of the institutions and the way large organisations operate. The attributes of the second system are not just the opposite to the first, but reflect who makes decisions and why. Yet the production system of "State Forestry" ie what the Forest Services do, is now almost synonymous with "Forestry" - most of the other variants have been relegated to exceptions in many countries. A number of national Forest Policies state that all forest lands belong to the State, and/or that all forest plantations shall be under the control of the Forestry authority.
This is not a riddle - much of the officially reserved forests in many countries of South and Southeast Asia are actually treeless. In some cases, the land is in fact productive agricultural land, the illegal farms of people who "squatted" there many years ago. In some countries, the Reserved Forest boundaries have been drawn around areas of forest which indigenous people had consciously managed for centuries, before being displaced by colonial authorities, or labelled as encroachers. However, in many more cases, the land is barren, eroding "wastelands".4
4 We should be careful about the word "wastelands" as this may represent only the official view - local people may find them useful for some grazing, collection of medicinal plants and fuels etc. Their production may be much below their potential, but not necessarily zero.
A series of reports about "The Uncultivated Half of India" showed almost half the country was virtual wasteland, far below its potential productivity in any sense, and much of this was government-owned Forests, but treeless. "Forest Land" (under the control of a Forestry Department) is not necessarily forested land (having trees on it). In many cases, Forest (Department) Land has no trees, while many trees are grown by farmers on land which is not Forest Land. Most of the country papers recognise this - we are no longer surprised by treeless Forests!
In Thailand, there are now, officially, 10 million ha of barren, treeless, degraded and degrading lands which are not occupied or regularly used by anyone - the classic wasteland. A further 12 million ha of land, also under the legal control of the Royal Forest Department, is actually occupied and used by farmers. This is said to be illegal and "temporary" but there are houses, shops, roads, with electricity services.5 Some of these farmers grow trees, but not always of the type preferred by RFD e.g. Mango, Mulberry, Kapok (Bombax spp). Only 3.07 million ha of the 24.4 million ha being cultivated in Thailand has legal title - much of the remainder is actually "Forest Land" used to grow cassava and corn for export.6
5 They may pay taxes on these lands and receive extension services from other government departments, suggesting this use of the "Reserved Forest" is far from temporary. Their illegal land tenure could even be recognised by banks as collateral.6 Phantumvanit (1990) calculated that a 10 % increase in the world price of cassava led to a 16% increase in loss of forests (but presumably not the reverse - if prices fall, the deforested land may just be abandoned - not restored). Panayouto (1987) reported that construction of a major highway in Northeast Thailand was followed by logging and shifting agriculture, resulting in the loss of over 1 million ha (of what was continuous forests in 1973) in only 4 years.
Although there are officially 100,000 hectares of sal (Shorea robusta) forests in northern Bangladesh, which was the traditional home and source of livelihood of the Garot Tribes, probably less than 20 % of this area is still recognisable as (heavily degraded) forest. Most is farmland; illegal logging has continued steadily for twenty years after an official total ban on logging in these forests; the modest areas of plantation established on areas reclaimed from "encroachers" have generally failed, for technical reasons, and due to fires and deliberate vandalism.
In the Philippines, it is estimated that there are 6 million people living in the National Forests, and another 8 million on the forest fringes - among the poorest in the country with an average income under $US 200/year. Of 15 million ha of "Forest Land", only 6.5 million ha is now forested, and less than 1 million ha of this is primary forest. Some barangays and towns in the Philippines (e.g. Quezon, Mt Makeling in Laguna, and in Misamis Occidental in Mindanao) are in the middle of Forest Reserves and National Parks. Within the Reserved Forests of Idukki District (Kerala, India) are hospitals, colleges, the District Headquarters and large shopping centres. In Indonesia, the town of Bukit Soeharto in Kalimantan Timur lies entirely within Government forest. Over 12 million ha of Indonesia's Reserved Forest is reported to be treeless.
How has this situation arisen?
a) From the scientists' and technicians' perspective,7 forests are disappearing because there are too many people, they use too much wood too wastefully, their trees are too slow-growing, etc. -purely technical explanations. As Ohlsson & Byron (1989) observed, this view totally ignores the role of small farmers as producers of fuelwood and poles on their lands. Although depicted as parasitic consumers of fuelwood, they often consume less than they grow, and use inferior substitutes themselves so they can then sell the surplus for cash.
7 Similar to "people starve because there is not enough food, so if we grow more food, there will be no more starvation."
Despite its many deficiencies, this viewpoint is still common, as a quick technical fix is sought to alleviate what are in fact long-term social and structural-policy-institutional problems. "Solutions" include:
get rid of the population pressure;establish vast government plantations of fast-growing exotic species as fuelwood plantations; and
introduce more fuel-efficient chulas (stoves), etc.
b) Another frequent explanation for the disappearance of forests is an absence of law and order, which enables the popular masses to overflow onto government forest lands, encroach, steal wood, and so on. The obvious remedy is stricter enforcement of the law, by the police, army and forest service in combination, as has been tried in countries as diverse as India, Bangladesh, Burma, Philippines, Viet Nam, Indonesia and Thailand. In none of these countries has this approach been very through higher yielding varieties, successful. It is logistically impossible to protect so many hectares from so many people, day and night, even with the combined military might of governments. Moreover, if people who have no other place to live and no alternative livelihood, are expelled from one part of a forest, they simply find another patch to settle in, and the process continues. Yet the Bangladesh paper, for example, calls for harsher legislation and penalties, and more armed guards for enforcement!
c) Most social scientists recognise the "Tragedy of the Commons" argument. Because the government agency is unable to effectively enforce the property rights it claims, forest reserves are really nobody's forests, they are everybody's forests, and so each individual has an incentive to take as much as s/he can, as quickly as possible, before somebody else does. Further, under these rules, it would be entirely irrational for any individual to invest his/her effort in managing, conserving or improving the forests, since everybody else or anybody else, may capture all the rewards.
If the neighbouring small and ex-farmers have no viable alternative than to degrade the land with short-term exploitative temporary agriculture, to steal logs, to collect fuelwood for sale in urban markets, then it is unlikely that any amount of coercion, extension or persuasion will alter their practices.8 Farmers use methods requiring little investment so that eviction is "affordable" - a possibility these encroachers must live with. This pattern has existed in Indonesia, Philippines, Viet Nam, Bangladesh, Thailand, India and Nepal.
8 Forest Department threats, if sufficiently draconian and vigorously enforced, may make a small impact in the short term, but given the widespread failure of this approach, instead we see the helpful, smiling face of the forestry extension officer. He may look like the same Forest Guard who used to intimidate the local people, he may still be armed, he may still arrest people on the 3 days per week when he is not on Extension duty, and he may not know anything of any value to extend to the local people!
But the devastation caused by these temporary agricultural practices of migrant squatters, does not negate our general argument of the small farmers as professionals, where they have secure land tenure, for example in Betagi Village in Bangladesh. Outsiders with high status have undertaken to protect and support about 80 families, essentially guaranteeing secure access to land. With very little external support - mainly advice - the villagers have developed a land use system which generates incomes well above average for Bangladesh.9
9 The majority of the villagers have about 2 hectares of land, most of which is hilly and undulating. Investing their knowledge, skills and labour in the land to which they have reasonably secure access, they have shown their potential.
Experts and professionals frequently overlook small farmers' professional competence because their criteria and definitions are different, and because the farmers are frequently denied secure access to land, through institutional land-denial mechanisms. In brief, small farmers and landless may be major instruments for forest destruction but they are not the cause. The cause is the political and socio-economic framework, expressed as denial of secure access to land, to knowledge and technology and other inputs. Economic signals from "the marketplace" are frequently distorted by misguided government pricing policies.
"Shifting cultivators no more cause deforestation than foot-soldiers cause wars!"10
10 I am not trying to idealise the shifting cultivators nor defend their contribution to deforestation, merely to illustrate different points of view.
d) Some analysts reject the view of the ignorant masses who sabotage the best efforts of the dedicated forest services by their incessant encroachment, fires, grazing or shifting cultivation. Rather they observe that much of the deforestation has been at the instigation, sponsorship or patronage from extremely powerful quarters. This applies to both illegal logging (in unauthorised areas or in excess of legal quotas) and encroachment. This appears to occur on a large scale in parts of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and (until very recently) in the Philippines. One-third of that country's 30 million ha were controlled by Timber Licence Holders from 1971 to 1977, while local communities, including cultural minorities, were prosecuted for attempting to eke out a living by shifting cultivation.
To summarise this theory, the peasant is not the culprit of the deforestation, but a victim and a scapegoat. If there is any element of truth in this diagnosis of the problem of the disappearance of the forest from the Reserved Forest Land, what then would be an appropriate course of action?11
11 Where government salaries, always low, have been continuously eroded by inflation, to the extent that it is impossible to subsist on a government salary, then a supplementary source of income is needed. As one of my Ugandan students said, "Ridiculously low salaries have turned Forest Officials into Forest Thieves!"
e) The influence of other government agencies have frequently overwhelmed forest conservation. The "Grow More Food" campaign in India (and in China) boosted food production by expanding cultivated areas, not intensification (until the late 1960s). In India, 43 million ha of tree-cover was cleared 1951-76. This campaign also required irrigation - not only dams which flooded forests, but also powerlines, new settlements. Displaced graziers were forced up the hills and into the forests. The expansion of mining industries has also helped destroy forests (e.g. the iron mines of Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh). The elimination of malaria has been a contributing factor to deforestation in many countries, by making lowland forests habitable.
A conceptual failure?
Thus far, our analysis has looked at "Execution Failures" - in practice, some efforts have been unsuccessful, by certain criteria. One might question the very concept of having areas of land set aside by governments, purely or primarily for timber production by a professional, para-military organisation, in a densely populated country where many farmers are denied farm lands. If this concept itself is irrational or unbelievable, then we should expect serious flaws in its implementation!
A concept that generally assumes:
that there are no people in the forests, when in fact there are many;that people can be excluded from Reserves, when in fact this is often impossible;
that "Forestry" must be separated from agriculture - that tree farming to produce industrial wood is incompatible with and more important than other human endeavours, on these particular lands called Reserved Forests";
that policy instruments and strategies can be applied to all people across all parts of the country; and
that "the people" can not, and will not, grow trees when in fact there is ample evidence that they can, have and still do;
seems a weak basis for national forestry.
At the time of the creation of most Forest Services throughout the world (1860-1920 approximately) there was an almost universal presumption that only governments could be trusted to manage and protect forests; that short-sighted people would inevitably destroy forests and never regenerate them; and so Forestry was "nationalised" and professionals had to defend forests against a hostile sea of agriculture especially. This led to a "fortress mentality", protecting and guarding our islands (Reserves). We had a legislated mandate and responsibility for everything that happened on our territory, but had very little to do or say about what happened outside reserves. The sea between our forest islands was abandoned to agriculture. Many bureaucratic institutions established to practice "Forestry" adopted the production system described in Table 2 as "State Forestry". This might have "worked successfully" in certain times (the colonial period) and in certain places (mainly Western industrialised countries) though we need to carefully circumscribe the term "successfully".
But in many countries of Asia, we can see today the consequences of its weakness in both respects -not only has implementation in the field been questionable, but the whole concept of "Who was to do what, where and why", may have been inappropriate to the reality of those countries, right from the outset of "State Forestry" in Asia. Philippines has now decided the concept is inappropriate, and is handing management control back to local communities. Nepal is transferring management responsibility to traditional user groups. China will rely on the commercial activities of millions of farmers (many of whom will associate as shareholder companies) to produce plantation timber. But other countries fight on, trying to defend territory they are not using and cannot adequately protect, against people who need land to survive. Perhaps Pakistan should be considered fortunate in NOT having vast areas of reserved forests to protect, or be chained down with! Rather, Pakistani forestry has gone out into the farmlands in a very successful collaborative arrangement to benefit the farmers, the society and the environment.
This issue seems to dominate many of the Country Papers, and numerous commentaries by outside experts. It seems to have three components:
Whether a mechanism for land use planning exists? (e.g. not in Thailand, but the Philippines has an "Alienable and Disposable" process.)Whether decisions/plans are actually made?
Whether they are adhered to?
Because Malaysia has no National Landuse Plan "the Permanent Forest Estate is vulnerable to excision and conversion". Although there is no planning mechanism for such conversions, Environmental Impact Statements are now required if over 500 ha of primary forest is affected.12 In Thailand, it seems that landuse planning is difficult; even when done it may not be enforceable, or is easily overturned, and depletion and degradation is often facilitated, even encouraged by other Ministries, despite the National Forest Policy. Many government forest departments have legal responsibility and rights over the forests, but have difficulties in effectively enforcing such rights.
12 This is the unfortunate situation now in Australia also, where EIS is being as a de facto landuse-planning tool.
A National Land Use Policy is sometimes cited as a pre-requisite for the National Forest Policy. However, this can be debated at three levels: is it really necessary? is it really possible? would it be followed?
Potential improvements in Landuse Planning depend on the precise situation and diagnosis within each country, but perhaps they might include:
1. More effective, intelligent, participatory and hence more enforceable landuse planning, including effective liaison with related agencies and local people;2. A National Resource Information Centre, which independently monitors the status of all natural resources, and perhaps advises governments on land suitability and resource conflicts;
3. Land reform and rural development, e.g. granting long term leasehold to local farmers/communities who are in a position to effectively manage forests, and
4. More productive, intensive agriculture and improved sustainable farming systems.
Forestry officials have concentrated on managing large government estates, as raw materials sources for large-scale industry. Much less time and effort was available for:
managing the public goods and downstream social-environmental benefits from forests;involving local people in the management of government (or communal or private) forests;
or
mediating with Agriculture, Environment, Transport, Public Works etc regarding landuse allocation.
Our accounting procedures have not been geared to stress efficient management of valuable natural assets on behalf of the whole society, or even towards profitable marketing of commodities - typically we have tried to maximise physical outputs, rather than net benefits.
