المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Self-Sustaining livelihoods from forests

People helping themselves

The first point raised by Nyasha Tiriraya in her summary of last week’s debate/discussion says it all. People everywhere need to ‘help themselves’ and the best way of doing this is to develop one or more livelihoods based upon the resources that they have available. This may include access to forests, woodlands or agricultural resources but it also, and crucially, includes the resources of the people themselves.

Herein are issues of approach, but it is too simplistic to refer, as Nyasha Tiriraya does, to ‘livelihoods based upon either commercial or subsistence means’. The latter is neither sustainable nor practical long-term and typically reflects upon the endemic poverty of many rural communities, but also marginalization and isolation which means, in reality, lack of access to information, technologies, finance and markets. Further, in high density rural areas there are, typically, insufficient resources available for traditional subsistence production systems to continue to deliver.

No one wants to be a subsistence grower

You only have to work with subsistence producers to appreciate the challenges that they face with feeding themselves, paying school fees, managing illness in the family and more. High on those priority wish-lists is the determination not to have their children (at least the boys in the family) become subsistence growers. Urban centres offer social attractions and financial advantages that employment provides. In short this is all about ‘education’; educating people to enable them to escape their poverty.

Search the five year rolling development plans for just about every low-income country and you’ll find objectives that target: ‘shifting every subsistent grower into commercial production’. The rhetoric is always there - it’s just that typically there are insufficient resources of funds and experienced people in the public sector to make a significant difference.

Competition from timber companies

Forest people can be double or triple disadvantaged given the competition for access to the resources of national forests with commercial timber companies, working closely with government people, that are provided with priority access to those same resources. All timber companies are not the same, but the speed with which forests are sometimes clear-felled with scant regard to the sustainability of habitats, stands and/or single species and the non-wood forest fauna/flora that depend upon them suggests the high value of the formal tax returns that government receives and, equally, the unofficial payments that are sometimes given to key decision-makers.

There is sometimes official smugness as new plantations of industrial trees replace the sometimes ancient indigenous forests that once dominated - copying the practices that were followed in earlier times by today’s high income countries. Whether harvesting fruits, leaves, timber or gums the plantation becomes the domain of the manager and workers, and it no longer provides either the social insurance or the biological wealth of old.

Making livelihoods more attractive

Livelihoods followed by indigenous forest people may ultimately help retain the sustainability of that forest, but this will depend to a large extent upon the goodwill of the public administration. There are no (or at least few potential) tax returns from the honey hunter, for example, exploiting wild bees in a patch of forestland. Therein is a sense of public financial support required of indigenous people – foregoing commercial earnings in exchange for the stability of forest cover and the longevity of traditional practices. Start with safety nets – shift to community-led commercial practices as markets can be developed.

Those traditional social practices are changing everywhere, however, as rural people become more aware of social development elsewhere in their country and, equally, within practical reach in foreign lands. The mobile phone, like the radio before it, has provided access to the information that has changed people and their expectations forever.

What to do about it? Good question – but much too hard to provide an easy answer that will assist with this debate. In reality, there are no easy answers. You need educated electorates in countries with levels of corruption that can be managed - to provide security for the natural environment including forests.

Resources of information

You can summarise this kind of approach within the ‘3Rs’ concept as promoted by the Centre for International Forest Research; these are ‘Rights’, ‘Returns’ & ‘Restoration’ and they refer to the sustainability of rural landscapes in all the complexity of people making a living from the natural resources available to them. The ‘3Rs’ are self-explanatory, but you can find out more at: http://blog.cifor.org/28860/rights-returns-and-restoration-3rs-for-landscapes.

In the meantime, focus upon the development of those livelihoods that will, perhaps, boost the circulation of money and wealth in the community. For many years I have made use of some popular publications produced by the FAO Forestry Department. Check out the information available at: http://www.fao.org/forestry/publications/en/. Check under ‘Forestry papers’ and ‘Working papers’. Key words are: ‘Livelihoods’, ‘Enterprises’ and ‘Small-scale’. That all important sector ‘Non-wood forest products’ is best covered in the NWFP series at: http://www.fao.org/forestry/nwfp/85525/en/. Key texts are: #5. ‘Edible nuts’, #6. ‘Gums’, #7. ’Rural incomes’, #9. ‘Domestication’, #11 ‘Medicinal plants’, #17. ‘Fungi’, #19 ‘Bees’ and #171 ‘Edible insects’.

Most of the modern publications can be down-loaded. Earlier publications are available in hard copy only, but note that people in the low-income countries can request copies free-of-charge from the local FAO Representative in the capital city.

Thoughts for the next FSN forest debate

Estimated four billion hectares of forest occupy around 31% of global land areas. World populations are expected to stabilize at 9-10 billion by 2050, the great majority of whom will be living in urban centres. The challenge will be one of producing the additional 70% food required from much the same agricultural lands that are currently available today; and, simultaneously and for best, expanding forest lands for their environmental, economic and social values.

Peter Steele

Rome

03June2015