Background

Strengthening data collection and analysis is critical for improving forest policy formulation and planning at national and sub-national levels. However, this aspect has not been given much attention in most countries, undermining the adoption of sustainable forest management practices. The EC-FAO Partnership Programme (1998-2000) on "Data Collection and Analysis for Sustainable Forest Management in ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) Countries - linking National and International Efforts" aims to strengthen national capabilities related to forestry information and statistics. An important starting point for this is to review and validate existing data and to improve the data collection process and methodologies.

This present study focuses specifically on aspects of wood-products, such as production, consumption and trade of roundwood, industrial roundwood, sawlogs, veneer logs, pulpwood, wood-chips, sawnwood, wood-based panels, and paper and paperboard, etc.

Apart from improving the quality of basic data, this study is expected to strengthen the technical capacity and expertise of the Directorate of Forestry, Namibia, in forestry data collection and analysis to produce information on the forestry sector. Participation in this effort and networking with other national focal points and experts dealing with wood-products statistics is expected to benefit the government of the Republic of Namibia through sharing of methodologies and information and facilitating learning from each other's experience.

Namibia's forest resources constitute an important national heritage, which provides both economic and environmental benefits. Forestry development in Namibia started at the beginning of the 20^th century when the role of woody vegetation in environmental protection was recognised by the German colonial government. However, the forest resource suffered a great deal under the South African mandate period when the deliberate policy of uncontrolled cutting was encouraged, especially in the communal areas of the North and North East of the country. Indeed no meaningful development activity was initiated in the sector during South African occupation.

Colonial policy of forest exploitation, especially in the communal areas, and commercial areas of Tsumeb and Grootfontein that started in the 1930s continued unabated until Namibia attained independence in 1990. Lack of technical capacity to administer forest concessions worsened the situation of uncontrolled forest exploitation. Meanwhile, poor forestry administration constrained the initiation of any meaningful forestry development activities. In the early 1970s and late 1980s, the country’s liberation struggle prevented the implementation of forestry development activities in large areas of Northern Namibia, which needed attention and still carries the bulk of the forest resources.

For many years forestry development was managed from a small section under the Ministry of Agriculture. Independent Namibia created, in 1990, a Directorate of Forestry, to highlight the importance of forestry to national development and to carry out programmes that are aimed at implementing the national forest policy.

Presently, the Directorate of Forestry is still in its early developmental stages. The Directorate produced the first Forestry Strategic plan for Namibia in 1996. In addition, in August 1997 the Directorate started carrying out the Namibia-Finland Forestry Programme to implement the Strategic Plan. The strategic Plan is based on ecological, environmental, cultural, and socio-economic considerations and it considers production, protection and participation as the three important issues of forestry development in Namibia.

New Forest legislation was completed in 1997 and is awaiting approval by parliament. The national forest policy of Namibia has been reviewed and is awaiting approval.

The main challenges being faced by the Directorate are manpower development, infrastructure development and improvement of data and information for the planning and management of forest resources. Several forestry staff are in colleges and universities to obtain Forestry Diplomas and BSc Degrees. The infra-structural development is almost complete. Forestry data collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination are in progress and need further support and strengthening to institutionalise the process.

A process to develop Criteria and Indicators aimed at monitoring sustainable forest management in Namibia is also on going. A few criteria and indicators have now been selected for actual testing in the field.

Availability of statistics on production, consumption and trade of wood products in Namibia is scanty and to a certain extent non-existent. The key relevant authorities such as Ministry of Trade and Industry, Customs and Excise and National Planning Commission (Central Statistics Bureau), although collect wood products data, do not have information on wood products in a form that can be readily and easily disseminated to the public. It seems that so far there is no deliberate plan or efforts to regularly analyse this data and provide the information in a format ready for the user.

Therefore, in Namibia there is a great and urgent need to establish a comprehensive database on production, consumption and trade of wood products. Obviously, this is a long-term exercise, which should be continued beyond this review, with the assistance of aid organisations.

The Directorate of Forestry has started to keep track of wood products trade data through the recently established Forestry Permit System. However, this system now needs to be expanded to include additional data on wood products such as production, consumption and trade of roundwood, industrial roundwood, sawlogs, veneer logs, pulpwood, wood-chips, sawnwood, wood-based panels, and paper and paperboard, etc. Only in this way will information on wood products trade be at the fingertips of the Directorate and thereby become easily disseminated to the public.