VOLUME 3, TOPIC 15
A. K. Mukerji1
SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT BY LOCAL COMMUNITIES:
THE ROLE OF NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS
J.K. Hibberd1
In Papua New Guinea, local communities are being assisted in the development of NTFPs as
part of a programme to manage primary forest to conserve the remaining populations of the
world's largest butterfly, the Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly (QABB),
Ornithoptera Alexandrae Rothschild. All QABB forest areas are under customary land tenure. These forests are
utilised extensively by local communities and most rural families practice a relatively subsistence level
of lifestyle supplemented by occasional cash crops. Villagers' lifestyles depend upon a supply of
land for family gardens which, together with hunting, provide most of a communities' food, shelter
and religious needs. The paper details how the Oro Conservation Project is working to empower
local communities to take a more active role in the management of their forests since clearing of
primary forest for new village gardens has the potential to destroy the core habitat for QABB. A range
of approaches are examined. Local people have been encouraged to participate in the Project in
a variety of activities.
The paper investigates utilisation of the primary rainforest and finds twelve major categories
of items being collected. Wild food resources are shown to provide a substantial supplement
to community diets while hunting tends to be opportunistic rather than highly organised, with
fifteen species of wild fauna being regularly hunted. Information is presented on the importance of
forest products for community medicine, building materials, and direct cash income.
A number of strategies to improve forest management are examined. The key to
improved management of customary owned forests is shown to be collaborative management, which is
being implemented through participatory rural appraisal. It is suggested that sustainable NTFP
forest management strategies also need to address economic and social aspects besides just those
of ecological, silvicultural and ecosystem processes.
The encouragement of local communities to take a more positive role in actively managing
their forests for sustainable income is explored in the paper. The role of forest management is
examined and it is suggested that the forests need
to 'belong' to each local community in order to be
effective and sustainable. A range of techniques to facilitate participation by those classes of people
who traditionally are excluded is under trial. The paper concludes by detailing the role of
Village Conservation Committees whereby a cadre of local language speaking advocates for change
are trained.
1 International Forest Environment, Research and Management, GPO Box 2546, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
Previous Section
Next Section
Download the Pdf file for
this topic (182 K)
What is
a Pdf file ?
|
![[Back to FAO Home Page]](../../../IMG/GIF/faohom-e.gif){kind=small}
