K.B. Ghimire
Krishna B. Ghimire is project coordinator of the deforestation programme of UNRISD. Note: This article is adapted from a paper prepared for the Conference on the Social Dimensions of Environment and Sustainable Development, held in Valletta, Malta, 22-25 April 1992 and sponsored by UNRISD and the Foundation for International Studies.
This article discusses examples of local - level reactions to the deforestation or alienation of forest, woodland and savannah in developing countries. To examine these aspects more systematically, the article first observes household efforts, followed by community or collective reactions. A critical assessment of the effectiveness or limitations of these local-level experiences is provided in the final section.
This article draws on available literature and empirical material generated by the Research Programme on the Social Dynamics of Deforestation in Developing Countries, conducted by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). As part of the programme, detailed case-studies were initially carried out in Brazil, several countries of Latin America, Nepal and the United Republic of Tanzania; additional studies were undertaken later in French-speaking West Africa. A number of thematic studies on major issues of general concern have also been commissioned. The UNRISD programme places special emphasis on analyzing the alternatives proposed by different groups for ameliorating the negative socio-economic and ecological impacts of deforestation. At the outset, it needs to be appreciated that deforestation is one element of a wide and complex panorama of environmental and social change. Therefore, while the local reactions described in this article are undoubtedly associated with deforestation or alienation from forest, woodland or savannah resources, viewing them in a direct cause-effect relationship would be simplistic. Coping strategies may often be responses to deeper and wider concerns.
Rural households respond to changing environmental circumstances in a variety of ways, although literature dealing specifically with deforestation is fragmentary. As is commonly indicated, deforestation can seriously affect rural production and subsistence systems. The households most affected are at times forced to undertake radical measures, including the abandonment of settlements in order to migrate to agricultural frontiers or urban areas, although in some cases "pull" factors associated with the new destination can also play an important role. However, permanent migration is usually a last resort. Before taking such an extreme step, most households seek to adjust to changing socioeconomic circumstances associated with deforestation by suppressing subsistence levels, seeking wage employment, managing productive resources better and reducing their dependence on the forest.
Adjustment processes associated with deforestation are most evident in the agricultural sector. The Central American and Tanzanian studies show a drastic reduction in the fallow period in swidden agriculture (Utting, 1991; Mascarenhas and Maganga, 1991). In some cases, this has led to the emergence of "permanent cultivation" and productive investments in land (e.g. irrigation, terracing) while, in other cases, it has resulted in declining land productivity and reduced yields. As far as the area of permanent cultivation is concerned, peasant farmers seem to have combined various methods to maximize production or to improve general livelihood conditions. New crops have been adopted or crop combinations altered to accommodate increased food and other requirements.
Rural households affected by deforestation also adopt many labour - intensive methods in agriculture, as is evident in the Tanzanian example of vegetable cultivation in place of annual perennial crops. In addition, they become involved in multi-employment strategies, including seasonal agricultural wage employment, and small-scale trading such as firewood selling and alcohol brewing. The extent to which these opportunities are exploited, depends on specific socioeconomic, ecological and cultural contexts.
Forms of adjustment can be observed in livestock production practices as well. This is addressed in some detail in the Tanzanian and Nepalese studies (Mascarenhas and Maganga, 1991; Shrestha and Uprety, 1991). Deforestation, accompanied by the reduction of access to grazing areas, has required rural households to make important changes in their traditional cattle farming practices in both countries. Some households are being obliged to reduce the size of the herd despite the negative effects on subsistence and income levels while others are required to reassess their cattle needs and the comparative advantage of keeping certain types of cattle.
As regards adjustment to the scarcity of forest products, the resident households seem to react in two major ways. "self squeeze" and "self-reliance". Self - squeeze involves the development of various internal mechanisms that allow farmer households to adjust to the growing shortage of forest products. The Nepalese study, in particular, enumerates this process (Shrestha and Uprety, 1991). For instance, as wood becomes increasingly scarce, rural households attempt to reduce the amount of firewood needed for cooking, heating and lighting purposes. The custom of stoking hearths has now almost disappeared. Instead, people wrap their bodies with blankets or quilts in the winter, and women light ovens only in the morning and the evening.
One of the principal self-reliance methods involves the planting of trees, even though most households recognize that these trees occupy land that could be put to an alternative use and that perennial crop yields may be reduced through the effect of tree shade. Farmers with unproductive land have also begun planting trees for fodder and fuelwood. In the Terrai, the planting of Leucaena sp. and Dalbergia sissoo has become popular, mainly as hedges or in home gardens, but also as commercial crops on larger farms.
A principal characteristic of community level responses to deforestation, or to a lack of access to forest and grassland resources, is collective action in which several households come together to express their grievances or advance their specific interests. Most of these aggregate interests are also shared at the individual household or group level. However, there is no guarantee that all the households or social groups involved would equally partake in the resultant benefits. It is also true that certain households or social groups might be required to bear more responsibility than others.
One important community-level action is the attempt to strengthen traditional resource management systems. This involves wider discussions and collective decision-making. The prime aim of this is to increase productivity of available natural resources as well as to adopt wise resource-use practices. For instance, local communities may seek to curb excessive use of the forest in order to allow its successive regeneration. In areas where government authority is weak or when political instability prevails, local people may themselves take initiatives to protect forests from those seeking to profit from the situation. They may also regulate harvests in order to guarantee sustainable use of different forest products. They may engage in reorganizing grazing regulations, including the encouragement of stall feeding, or rotating grazing systems. Village wasteland areas may be reclaimed for tree planting and growing animal grass or thatch material or for restoring the productivity of land for long-term agricultural or agroforestry purposes.
Another form of collective mobilization involves a participatory and positive attitude towards government policies and programmes relating to environmental protection. For example, local communities may become more receptive to official environmental awareness programmes. They may cooperate with government staff in forest protection activities such as reporting on illegal felling of trees or illegal hunting of animals. Community participation can also be vital in the planting of trees on public lands. Local people can play an important role in establishing nurseries, planting trees and guaranteeing their long - term protection. However, as is commonly noted, many of the official tree-planting programmes have proved unrealistic from the standpoints of local peasants and communities because they are frequently based on a superficial knowledge of local social, economic and cultural characteristics, constraints and needs.
Collective opposition to development projects and programmes involving dams, mines and roads has been reported in many developing countries. Such resistance has been directed at the indiscriminate cutting of trees by loggers, or towards authorities that provide official licences for such activities.
There is some emerging literature that documents collective resistance by local communities. The most widely discussed case is the Chipko movement in northern India. This movement developed within the context of a very long history of popular mobilization against the colonial authorities' control of local forest resources for commercial exploitation and revenue generation (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay, 1988). Since independence, based on the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence, the movement has evolved into general resistance against logging. One remarkable aspect has been "tree hugging" by women in order to prevent felling. In recent years, the movement has been transformed into a tree-planting campaign to regenerate forests in the denuded hills of the Indian Himalayas as well as in other parts of the country.
Another well-known popular-based movement of poor, forest-dependent people is the struggle of Penan and other tribal groups in Sarawak, Malaysia, against the destruction of their homelands by commercial loggers. In order to protect forests and defend their traditional territories from loggers, these people have resorted to forming "human blockades" across logging roads. The Malaysian Government has frequently intervened by dismantling the blockades, arresting and detaining tribes people and imposing fines and prison terms. Yet, despite these punitive measures, the blockades have persisted and continued to cause severe disruption to timber extraction activities (Colchester, 1991). Similarly, the collective mobilization of local people against official forestry or development interventions has a long history in Thailand and the Philippines.
In general, the social movements of communities in Africa, as related to forests, woodlands and savannah, are poorly studied. However, some documented examples do exist. For example, Maasai pastoralists in East Africa actively resisted attempts by the colonial administration to develop large scale ranching and agricultural estates of white settlers within their territories (Miller, 1987; Thomson, 1983). After independence, these people have lost a great deal of their land to national parks, game reserves and commercial plantations. Many popular reactions to these measures have occurred, including non-cooperation in official land and livestock improvement projects, disregard for land laws and refusal to leave protected areas (Matampash, 1991; Lochgan, 1991).
Popular movements In Malaysia have bean directed against unsustainable logging practices
In Latin America, organized protests and opposition by forest dwellers to deforestation and encroachment have become common. In El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala and Honduras, Indians and resident peasant populations dependent on forest resources have led many protest movements to prevent mining, excessive logging and forest clearing for large-scale cash crop production (Utting, 1991).
Collective actions involving landless migrants, Indians and rubber tappers in the Brazilian Amazon have received widespread attention in recent years. The rubber tappers' movement is the most organized movement of these forest-based communities. The centre of this movement has been Acre, where Chico Mendes campaigned for the recognition of land rights, the establishment of extractive reserves and an end to people's debt peonage on traditional rubber estates (Hecht and Cockburn, 1990).
The rubber tappers' movement can in many respects be considered "successful". Besides its ability to acquire growing international support, it has become a potent political action in influencing government land-use policies. The Brazilian Government has now recognized the traditional land rights of many of these people and set aside significant tracts of Amazonian forests as indigenous reserves where rubber tappers and other social groups can carry out sustainable forest extraction practices.
On various occasions, sustained protest to defend their traditional land rights has allowed the indigenous people of other Latin American countries to make significant gains. For example, the Kuna people of Panama, who have a long tradition of strong political organization, acquired semiautonomous legal rights to forest land from the federal governmental early as the 1930s. Since that time though, they have had to confront incursions by cattle ranchers and subsistence farmers (Chapin, 1990).
In Africa, the Maasai of Serengeti National Park in Tanzania again merit consideration. When the colonial government established the park in 1940, it sought to clear the Maasai inhabitants from the area. This led to prolonged protests from the Maasai, and the government was eventually forced to split the park into two sections, Serengeti and Ngorongoro. The Maasai were allowed to maintain their dwellings and livestock in the Ngorongoro area (Arhem, 1986; Parkipuny, 1991).
Although some environmental movements such as those discussed above have had an important impact in protecting forests and woodlands and securing a level of livelihood for certain social groups, there are many others that have failed to yield positive results. In fact, in some cases they have produced entirely contradictory effects. For example, in the state of Bihar in India, the Ho tribal people, denied their customary access to forests by the government, have expressed their grievances by launching a "forest cutting movement" (Colchester, 1991). Another example is the Philippine island of Mindanao where indigenous communities, dispossessed of their land by the state as well as by large cattle ranchers, have engaged in land reoccupation campaigns involving further clearance of forests and the establishment of fresh dwellings (Lumad, 1991). In Sarawak, Malaysia, alongside a growing protest movement against commercial logging, select tribal groups chose to align with the loggers. Similarly, in Papua New Guinea, despite securing legal land rights, certain communities are apparently involved in leasing out their lands to logging and mining companies for financial gains (Colchester, 1991). Cases such as these scarcely contribute to the sustainable management of forests.
In other cases, attempts to protect forests and livelihoods through collective actions have merely resulted in more repression, while the benefits of deforestation have gone to the dominant social groups. In Asia, armed confrontations between local communities and the state over forest resources have occurred in the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and India. More serious events have taken place in Latin America, especially in El Salvador and Guatemala.
Collective actions around forestry issues share many characteristics of urban and rural social movements. They frequently lack sustained and coordinated action, and local communities become exposed to repeated repression. First of all, forest dwellers and peasants are fully occupied with the daily struggle for survival, thereby hindering their continued participation in collective action. Second, since any direct confrontation with the state or dominant social forces is likely to prompt further repression, many tend to restrain themselves from such activities. Third, the lack of effective organizations and leadership, combined with the physical isolation of settlements, makes political organization of these people extremely difficult. Finally, in many developing countries there is little or no political representation of the group interests of these people within the decision-making processes.
Although some forestry actions have been able to mobilize national and even international forces, many movements clearly lack the necessary outside political and organizational support. This makes collective actions local, chaotic and unsustained. It should also be noted that, even where external help has been available, it has frequently been unsteady. Furthermore, outside organizations involved have tended to impose their own interests. For instance, international environmental agencies that have supported local-level forest protection initiatives in developing countries have, in the majority of cases, tended to favor the preservation of flora and fauna and to ignore the long-term livelihood requirements of the local inhabitants. In this regard, the Chipko movement is an interesting case. Looking into its recent experience, one researcher argues that the movement has now been totally taken over by select Chipko groups and outside environmental activists and organizations who are primarily concerned with the conservation of natural resources and give little or no attention to local concerns economic survival (Rangan, in press). Rangan asserts that "...by the time Chipko had gained enough clout to influence state policies, the original livelihood concerns raised by village communities in Garhwai had all but been buried under the polemic and rhetoric raised over the movement. Chipko became the movement to save the Himalayas and India's environment at large, but said almost nothing about how the village folk were going to survive and improve their livelihoods in the bleak economic conditions prevailing in Garhwai."
It has been emphasized that a given social movement can become more effective if the participants share a homogenous socioeconomic background and have clearly defined, common goals. However, as far as forestry movements are concerned, many internal dynamics and contradictions exist between various participant social groups. Rural people involved in environmental movements are not only stratified along gender lines, social status, authority and wealth, but are also divided into groupings such as landowning farmers, landless forest and non-forest dwellers, migrants and non-migrants and residents and non-residents as well as varying ethnic and cultural groupings. Many of these groups can have their own specific interest which can frequently clash with the interest of other groups. Accordingly, collective action is likely to become more successful when the interests of various groups coincide. This imposes a severe limitation on the capacity of many forestry movements to endure and to attain their intended goals.
Although a number of collective mobilizations have been potent in protecting forests, woodlands or savannah, the magnitude of their positive impact as compared with the challenge has been very small. More concerted social actions attempting to achieve broad-based development focused on livelihood improvement and protection and sustainable utilization of available resources are fundamental. This also depends on the support these actions receive from outside social forces as well as on the roles that market forces arid national and international political institutions would play. Naturally, the successes and failures of a given social action should not be judged on the basis of its present results alone. Its long-term implications for the protection and sustainable use of forests, the fulfillment of local livelihood needs and aspirations and policy formations, as well as its ability to promote wider debate, public awareness and alternative ideas, must also be taken into account.
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