Undervalued natural resources
Forestry and food security
Wasting assets - natural resources In the national income accounts. R. Repetto et al. 1989. Washington, DC, World Resources Institute.
This book focuses on the fact that under most current national income accounting practices, only manmade assets such as buildings and equipment are valued as productive capital and written off against the value of production as they depreciate. Natural resources are not treated in this way and their losses are not charged against current income that would account for the decrease in potential future production.
As the authors write, "A country could exhaust its minerals, cut down its forests, erode its soil, and hunt its wildlife and fisheries to extinction but measured income would not be affected as these assets disappeared".
This anomaly partly derives from the fact that neo-classical economists have generally treated natural resources as almost unlimited and considered development as a function of savings and future investments in physical capital.
The authors underline that under the present system of national accounts (SNA), developed by the United Nations Statistical Office and used by most countries, the difference in treatment of natural resources and man-made assets provides false signals to policymakers and reinforces the idea that economic growth can be achieved and sustained by the exploitation of the resource base. The results can be illusory gains in income and permanent losses in wealth. These balance sheet asymmetries are particularly dangerous for developing countries, which usually depend heavily on their natural resource base for employment and exports.
The first section of Wasting assets argues that natural resources can be treated similarly to capital in national accounts and that accounting methods should be revised to make this possible. The authors review the efforts to this end taken by a number of members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including Canada, France, the Netherlands, Australia and Norway; and discuss pilot projects to reconsider national accounts in Indonesia, Costa Rica and China.
The second part of the book applies the authors' suggested methodology for integrating natural resource depletion into a revised national income accounting system to data from Indonesia. Preliminary resource accounts, both in physical and value terms, were applied from 1970 to 1984 using Indonesia's timber and petroleum sectors. From the results of the case case-study, the authors conclude that a significant reassessment of economic performance is necessary for Indonesia and, by inference, for other countries using the current SNA, and they argue for substantial changes to the system when it comes up for review in 1991.
M. Palmieri
Forestry and food security. FAO Forestry Paper No. 90. Rome, FAO, 1989.
In April 1985, the 10th session of the FAO Committee on World Food Security considered a preliminary study of the role of forestry in promoting food security and called for further exploration. During 1986 and 1987, the matter was discussed by the Committee on Forestry and three of the FAO Regional Forestry Commissions; these bodies recommended that an FAO Expert Consultation be convened.
The resulting Consultation, held in Bangalore, India, in February 1988, brought together 57 experts from 27 countries and organizations. The scope of the Consultation included all forestry-related activities that have a direct or indirect impact on food production and food security at the local level.
Particular attention was paid to the links between social, economic, technical, environmental and institutional issues. Emphasis was also placed on questions of equity, and especially on food security of the poor and other vulnerable groups.
To provide background for the Consultation, a series of papers was commissioned on various aspects of forestry and food security. This Forestry Paper presents a synthesis of the background material and the conclusions and recommendations of the Expert Consultation. It illuminates some of the links between forestry and food security and shows how forestry activities can and do have an impact on food security. In this report forestry is defined in a broad sense to include management and use of trees and shrubs on farms and grazing areas, as well as within established forest reserves. Drawing on many different sources, it pieces together a picture of the complex interactions between people, trees, forests, agriculture and food production. It looks at negative as well as positive effects of forestry activities, and it aims to distinguish links between forestry and food security that are well proved from those that are still speculative or disputed. Going beyond this, the report also sets out some initial ideas about how forestry policies and programmes can be directed to improving food security, especially for the poor.
The picture presented is in no way complete; there are important information gaps and some of the examples are drawn from isolated reports that may not be representative. The conclusions reached should therefore be treated as preliminary. They do, however, provide a basis for further investigation and are intended as a stimulus for the more detailed consideration of individual cases.
The publication was funded with inputs from the FAO/SIDA Forests, Trees and People Programme.
The socio-economic impact of forestry on household food security
Household food security and forestry: an analysis of socio-economic issues Rome, FAO, 1989.
The focus of this study is on the socio-economic aspects of forestry's role in household food security. It draws together information on household food and income that are actually derived from activities dependent on tree and forest products. It examines their importance in different situations and among different population groups and how the uses of these resources are changing. The study also addresses the consequences of decreasing forest resources and discusses the implications for forest policy and for management of forests and of trees outside the forests.
The study is divided into three main sections. The first section discusses the contribution forest and tree foods make to household diets as well as the benefits derived indirectly from other forest products such as fuelwood. It is often assumed that only forest dwellers and hunter-gatherers still depend on forest foods. The evidence presented here shows this is not the case; many rural agriculturists also depend on forest foods to supplement their diet. The chapter addresses the following key issues:
· identifying which forest foods are consumed and when, as well as the extent to which they are exploited;· the linkages between forestry and nutrition;
· the contribution of forest food to household food security; the ways in which forest food exploitation is changing with increasing commercialization of rural markets as well as increasing forest degradation;
· ways of integrating nutrition issues into forestry activities.
The second portion of the study describes income and employment gained in gathering and processing forest products and discusses their importance for rural households. Marketable forest products provide the opportunity to supplement household income, as well as providing a relief source in times of seasonal and emergency food and cash shortages. The role of these forest-based activities varies depending on the availability of alternative employment (especially agricultural tasks), the seasonal availability of the forest products, the need for cash income, access to the forest resource, the conditions of the forest resource and access to markets.
The final section explores the role of trees in farm economies and the possible impact on household food security when trees are integrated into farms. The presence of managed trees in farming systems can contribute to both the nutritional and the income components of food security, providing foods, inputs into other food-producing parts of the farm system, fuel for cooking, and products that can be sold. At the same time, their presence draws on the resources of the farm household and imposes costs of various kinds. This chapter identifies the linkages between trees and the rest of the farm household economy, the factors involved in farmer decisions for or against tree growing, and the impact of tree cash crops on household food security.
This publication is a component of a larger study undertaken on behalf of the FAO/SIDA Forests, Trees and People Programme by the Oxford Forestry Institute to review socio-economic aspects of the role of forestry in food production and food security, with special reference to those related to the quality of life.
