International Forestry Review

The

International Forestry Review

Contents PAPERS 1

18

FSC forest management certification in the Americas V.M. BASSO, L.A.G. JACOVINE, A.M.B. NARDELLI, R.R. ALVES, E.V. SILVA, M.L. SILVA and B.G. ANDRADE

31

Constraints to smallholder tree planting in the northern mountainous regions of Viet Nam: a need to extend technical knowledge and skills T.H. DO and R. MULIA

43

Estimating carbon avoided from entering the atmosphere from reduced-impact logging practices under the Climate Change Convention in Sabah, Malaysia M.V. GALANTE, M.A. PINARD and M. MENCUCCINI

58

79

Policy analysis for realizing the potential of timber production from Trees Outside Forests (TOF) in India M. GHOSH and B. SINHA

89

Addressing biodiversity in climate change discourse: Paris mechanisms hold more promise H. GUPTA and L.C. DUBE

104

Livelihoods, economic contribution and sustainability of the bush mango (Irvingia gabonensis) value chain from three provinces of Gabon D.M. IPONGA, C. MIKOLO YOBO, V. INGRAM, N. NSSI BENGONE and A. NGOYE

115

Culture and silviculture: origins and evolution of silviculture in Southeast Europe K.L. O’HARA, A. BONČINA, J. DIACI, I. ANIĆ, M. BOYDAK , M. CUROVIC, Z. GOVEDAR, N. GRIGORIADIS, S. IVOJEVIC, S. KEREN, H. KOLA, G. KOSTOV, M. MEDAREVIĆ, M. METAJ, N.V. NICOLESCU, G. RAIFAILOV, P.T. STANCIOIU and N. VELKOVSKI

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BOOK REVIEWS

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Vol. 20 (1), 2018

Improving forest land governance: the case of developing a digital archiving system for forest land records in Bangladesh S.K. BARUA, U.H. ABIR and M. BOSCOLO

The chronology of community participation in Indian forest management S. GHOSAL and J. LIU

THE INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY REVIEW

The motivation for community participation in forest management: the case of Sefwi-Wiawso forest district, Ghana E.O. ACHEAMPONG, K.O. AGYEMAN and O. AMPONSAH

EDITOR: A.J. POTTINGER International Forestry Review (print) ISSN 1465-5489 International Forestry Review (online) ISSN 2053-7778 PUBLISHED BY THE COMMONWEALTH FORESTRY ASSOCIATION

Vol.20(1), 2018 www.cfa-international.org

The International Forestry Review

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International Forestry Review Vol.20(1), 2018

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Contents PAPERS The motivation for community participation in forest management: the case of Sefwi-Wiawso forest district, Ghana E.O. ACHEAMPONG, K.O. AGYEMAN and O. AMPONSAH

1

Improving forest land governance: the case of developing a digital archiving system for forest land records in Bangladesh S.K. BARUA, U.H. ABIR and M. BOSCOLO

18

FSC forest management certification in the Americas V.M. BASSO, L.A.G. JACOVINE, A.M.B. NARDELLI, R.R. ALVES, E.V. SILVA, M.L. SILVA and B.G. ANDRADE

31

Constraints to smallholder tree planting in the northern mountainous regions of Viet Nam: a need to extend technical knowledge and skills T.H. DO and R. MULIA

43

Estimating carbon avoided from entering the atmosphere from reduced-impact logging practices under the Climate Change Convention in Sabah, Malaysia M.V. GALANTE, M.A. PINARD and M. MENCUCCINI

58

The chronology of community participation in Indian forest management S. GHOSAL and J. LIU

79

Policy analysis for realizing the potential of timber production from Trees Outside Forests (TOF) in India M. GHOSH and B. SINHA

89

Addressing biodiversity in climate change discourse: Paris mechanisms hold more promise H. GUPTA and L.C. DUBE

104

Livelihoods, economic contribution and sustainability of the bush mango (Irvingia gabonensis) value chain from three provinces of Gabon D.M. IPONGA, C. MIKOLO YOBO, V. INGRAM, N. NSSI BENGONE and A. NGOYE

115

Culture and silviculture: origins and evolution of silviculture in Southeast Europe K.L. O’HARA, A. BONČINA, J. DIACI, I. ANIĆ, M. BOYDAK , M. CUROVIC, Z. GOVEDAR, N. GRIGORIADIS, S. IVOJEVIC, S. KEREN, H. KOLA, G. KOSTOV, M. MEDAREVIĆ, M. METAJ, N.V. NICOLESCU, G. RAIFAILOV, P.T. STANCIOIU and N. VELKOVSKI

130

BOOK REVIEWS

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The motivation for community participation in forest management: the case of Sefwi-Wiawso forest district, Ghana E.O. ACHEAMPONG, K.O. AGYEMAN and O. AMPONSAH Department of Planning, College of Art and Built Environment, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

SUMMARY Due to the shortcomings of state control over forests, participatory approaches to managing forests have evolved. However, the motivation for people to participate voluntarily in forest management has received less research attention in Ghana. This research examined what motivated the fringe communities of the Suhuma Forest Reserve in Ghana to participate in its management. The study was designed to be consistent with the convergent parallel mixed methods. In this regard, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected at the same time to determine the motivation of the communities to participate in the management of the reserve. The qualitative data were obtained through focus group discussions with members of Community Forest Committees. The quantitative data were also obtained through a survey of 112 households (half of whom were members of Community Forest Committees) selected from 12 fringe communities. Analyses of the data revealed that participation in the management of the reserve was through voluntary Community Forest Committees. Access to the forest reserve for non-timber products, and the hope of getting degraded portions of the forest to farm were the factors that motivated the members of the Community Forest Committees to participate voluntarily in the management of the forest reserve. However, the Committees complained about the lack of motivational packages, inadequate logistics and non-response to requests for assistance from the Forest Services Division, but the need for farmlands has kept them on. The study recommends that the committees should be motivated by allocating the degraded sections of the forest to them for tree-crop planting, which could not only contribute to the restoration and sustenance of the forest reserve but also serve as a source of livelihood for the members of the Committees. Keywords: forest dwellers, livelihoods, fringe communities, deforestation, reforestation

Motivation pour une participation des communautés dans la gestion forestière: le cas du district forestier Sefwi-Wiawso, au Ghana E.O. ACHEAMPONG, K.O. AGYEMAN et O. AMPONSAH Les approches participatives de la gestion forestière ont évolué, du fait des carences présentes dans le contrôle d’état des forêts. Toutefois, moins de recherche a été effectuée au Ghana quant à la motivation des autochtones à participer volontairement à la gestion forestière. Cette recherche a examiné ce qui motivait les communautés au pourtour de la réserve forestière de Suhuma, au Ghana, à participer à sa gestion. L’étude avait été modelée pour aller de pair avec les méthodes convergentes mixtes. A cet égard, les données quantitatives autant que qualitatives avaient été recueillies dans le même laps de temps, afin de déterminer la motivation des communautés à participer à la gestion de la réserve. Les données qualitatives furent obtenues à travers des discussions de groupes focus consistant de membres des comités de la forêt communautaire. Quant aux données quantitatives, elles furent glanées par une étude de 112 foyers (dont la moitié consistaient de membres des comités de la forêt communautaire), sélectionnés dans 12 communautés périphériques. Des analyses de ces données révélèrent que la participation dans la gestion de la réserve s’opérait à travers des comités volontaires de la forêt communautaire. Les facteurs qui motivaient les membres des comités de forêt communautaire à participer volontairement à la gestion de la réserve forestière étaient un accès à la réserve forestière pour obtenir des produits forestiers autres que le bois, ainsi qu’un espoir d’obtenir des portions dégradées de la forêt dans le but de les cultiver. Cependant, bien que les comités se plaignaient du manque d’offres motivantes, de logistiques inadéquates et d’une absence de réponse aux demandes d’assistance de la Division des services forestiers; le besoin de terres à cultiver conservait leur présence dans le processus. Cette étude recommande que les comités soient motivés par l’offre d’une allocation des sections dégradées de la forêt pour des plantations d’arbres, lesquelles pourraient à leur tour contribuer à la restauration et à un soutien de la réserve forestière.

La motivación para la participación comunitaria en el manejo forestal: el caso del distrito forestal de Sefwi-Wiawso de Ghana E.O. ACHEAMPONG, K.O. AGYEMAN y O. AMPONSAH Los enfoques participativos para la gestión de los bosques han evolucionado a causa de las deficiencias del control estatal sobre los bosques. Sin embargo, la motivación de las personas que participa voluntariamente en el manejo forestal ha generado menos investigación en Ghana. Esta investigación examinó qué fue lo que motivó a las comunidades marginales de la Reserva Forestal Suhuma en Ghana a participar en su

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E.O. Acheampong et al.

gestión. El estudio fue diseñado para ser compatible con los métodos mixtos paralelos convergentes. En este sentido, se recopiló al mismo tiempo tanto datos cuantitativos como cualitativos, para determinar la motivación de las comunidades en cuanto a participar en el manejo de la reserva. Los datos cualitativos se obtuvieron a través de discusiones de grupos focales formados por miembros de los Comités Forestales Comunitarios. También se obtuvieron datos cuantitativos mediante una encuesta a 112 hogares (la mitad de los cuales eran miembros de los Comités Forestales Comunitarios) seleccionados de 12 comunidades marginales. Los análisis de todos estos datos revelaron que la participación en la gestión de la reserva se realizó a través de Comités Forestales Comunitarios voluntarios. El acceso a la reserva forestal para productos no maderables y la esperanza de obtener porciones degradadas del bosque para la agricultura fueron los factores que motivaron a los miembros de los Comités Forestales Comunitarios a participar voluntariamente en la gestión de la reserva forestal. Sin embargo, los Comités se quejaron de la falta de ofertas motivacionales, de logística inadecuada y de la carencia de respuesta a las solicitudes de apoyo a la División de Servicios Forestales, pero la necesidad de tierras de cultivo los ha mantenido involucrados. El estudio recomienda que se motive a los comités, asignándoles las secciones degradadas del bosque para la plantación de árboles, lo que podría contribuir a la restauración y el sustento de la reserva forestal.

INTRODUCTION Deforestation is a major global issue (Nolte et al. 2017). The extent of the world’s forest declined from 31.6% in 1990 to 30.6% in 2015. Over the same period, Africa’s forest declined from 25.4% to 22.5%; suggesting an annual deforestation rate of 0.12% (FAO 2015). West and Central Africa have had the highest rate of deforestation in the African region, with annual net loss of 0.39% from 1990 to 2015 (FAO 2015). Forest management to control deforestation is critical to governments and environmental institutions worldwide (Fang et al. 2014) due to the benefits every country (including those without forest) derive from forest products (FAO 2010). While some countries in the tropics are transitioning from deforestation to forest expansion, other countries especially in West and Central Africa are experiencing continued forest decline (Sloan and Sayer 2015). Ghana, a West African country, has been experiencing forest loss throughout its history but this has only been documented since the 1980s. The country recorded annual deforestation rates of 0.7%, 0.5%, 0.4%, and 0.6% for the periods 1990–2000, 2000–2005, 2005–2010, and 2010–2015, respectively (FAO 2015). Other studies show similar deforestation trends for the country (Owusu et al. 2012, Damnyag et al. 2013). Although, there are some inconsistencies in the results due to differences in criteria and assessment methods (MacDicken 2015), all the studies point to a recent increase in the rate of deforestation in the country. Deforestation in Ghana is attributed to overexploitation of natural resources, illegal and unsustainable logging, land tenure insecurity, and agricultural expansion into forests (Appiah et al. 2009, Amissah et al. 2010, Damnyag et al. 2012, Derkyi et al. 2013, Danquah and Tetteh 2016). Almost two-thirds of the country’s active labour force are farmers (GSS 2010). The non-agricultural sectors are unable to expand to absorb the increasing farming population, hence, the tendency for increased deforestation due to continued expansion of farms (Owusu et al. 2012). Subsistence slash-and-burn agriculture is known to be one of the major causes of deforestation in the country (Appiah et al. 2009). The International Tropical Timber Organization forecasts that Ghana’s forest would disappear in 25 years if the present rate of decline continues (Boafo 2013).

Despite the increased deforestation, Ghana’s forest resources support the livelihoods of more than 10% of the country’s population and contribute about 6% annually to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) (Appiah et al. 2009, Boafo 2013). About 90% of Ghana’s domestic energy is obtained from the forest (Acheampong and Marfo 2011). This indicates that forest outputs that are economically implicit and mainly utilised by local people to some extent outweigh the benefits that are known and recorded nationally. Therefore, the decline of the forest resources does not only affect those who depend directly on them but also the national economy as a whole. The state, faced with limited resources coupled with bureaucracies, has not been able to manage the forest resources towards their sustainability. This has led to the involvement of communities in forest management in Ghana and many developing countries. For instance, before the 1980s, forests in Burkina Faso were managed by the state. The centralized bureaucracies that failed to incorporate the needs of the rural people rendered the state’s management of the forest inefficient (Ribot 1999). Since the 1980s, various regulatory frameworks emphasizing local people’s participation have been adopted to manage forests for conservation purposes and socio-economic benefits to the individuals and the economy of Burkina Faso (Coulibaly-Lingani et al. 2011). Nepal’s forests were initially under state control through the Private Forest Nationalization Act enacted in 1957. However, the Nationalization policy was ineffective in many parts of Nepal due to insufficient number of forest managers and the neglect of local people in forest management. Subsequent political regimes and pressure on forest resources due to rapid population growth brought about community participation in forest management in Nepal (Gilmour and Fisher 1991). Since then, Forest User Groups formed from rural households have been responsible for the development, conservation, management, and utilization of forest resources in Nepal. The successes of these groups in relation to forest conservation have been attributed to the socio-economic benefits they derive from the forests (Tachibana and Adhikari 2009, Chhetri et al. 2013). From the foregoing, there are motivational factors that influence local people to participate in forest management. Stakeholders will participate in forest management if the

The motivation for community participation in forest management

benefits from their participation will outweigh the efforts invested (Geoghegan and Renard 2002, Warner 2006). In addition, stakeholders of natural resources have intrinsic goals they want to achieve. For instance, in forest management, some of these goals may include continuous access to non-timber forest products (NTFPs), access to fertile land for farming, and monetary benefits from sale of timber products. Stakeholders will be motivated to participate in the management of forest if the achievement of their goals is dependent on the participatory management of the resource, which is sometimes shaped by the political context and regulation in place (Short and Winter 1999, Brown 2002, Heikkila and Gerlak 2005). In summary, the level of community participation in forest management is determined by the benefits obtained from the forest resources (Emtage and Suh 2004, Maskey et al. 2006, Djamhuri 2008, Saito-Jensen et al. 2010, Lestari et al. 2015). In Ghana however, with permission, forest resources are accessible to all fringe community members regardless of one’s participation in forest management. Aside from the benefit-sharing scheme applicable in the Modified Taungya System reforestation program (Adjei et al. 2012, Danquah 2015, Acheampong et al. 2016, Aheto et al. 2016), all forest fringe communities have equal access to non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for domestic use. All fringe community members require permit to collect NTFPs for commercial purposes (Forestry Commission of Ghana 2008). The motivation for the inhabitants of forest fringe communities in Ghana to participate in forest management without any benefitsharing arrangements therefore appears to be a subject for investigation. This research, therefore, sought to determine what motivated the fringe communities of Suhuma Forest Reserve to participate in the management of the reserve and the challenges they faced in their participatory roles. Forest management in this research is defined as the strategies adopted to protect forest from depletion and improve upon the provisioning services, protective and productive functions of the forest.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF FOREST MANAGEMENT IN GHANA Ghana has had two formal forest policies throughout the history of forest management in the country. These are the 1948 Forest Policy and the 1994 Forest and Wildlife Policy (Ministry of Lands and Forestry 1994). However, many policy instruments preceded and helped to shape the two formal government policies. For instance in 1874, the British Colonial Office began to develop a universal forest conservation policy to combat deforestation since it was threatening the economic base of the colonial rule (Kotey et al. 1998). In 1908, H. N. Thompson recommended the establishment of forest reserves in Ghana and the Forestry Department to manage the reserves. The Forest Ordinance of 1927 was enacted to strengthen the constitution and management of forest reserves in the country and it is still active. After these and other instruments, the 1948 Forest Policy was formulated.

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The main objectives of the 1948 Forest Policy were to protect the forest environment, and promote research in all aspects of scientific forestry. The Forest Ordinance of 1927 was still the principal statute for the management of the forest reserves, vesting in the central government the power to constitute forest reserves regardless of the owners of the land. The constitution of the reserves did not transfer the titles to the land and the reserves to the state; it only vested in the state the control and management of the reserves through the Forestry Department. The 1927 Forest Ordinance and other legislation (such as the Forest Protection Decree of 1974) denied local communities of any rights within the reserves. Local fringe communities were prevented from carrying out any activity within the reserves without prior written authority of the then Forestry Department (Kotey et al. 1998). In the 1980s, the centralization of forest management, the exclusion of communities from forest management, among other factors were pointed out as the weaknesses of the 1948 Forest Policy and hence required revision (Tufour 1996). Before the commentaries on the weaknesses of the policy, some communities had already been involved in tree plantation establishment based on the Taungya System using both indigenous and exotic tree species (FAO/UNEP 1981). The system was unsuccessful because the farmers realised they derived no benefits from the trees since the state was the sole owner of the trees. Consequently in 1987, the Taungya System was officially stopped (Prah 1994). The Forestry Department introduced Collaborative Forest Management in 1993 and described this approach as the interaction between forest fringe communities and the Forestry Department that enhances the management of the forest and improves the flow of benefits to the people (Collaborative Forest Management Unit 1993). Factors that led to the introduction of this approach included national and international advocacy for people’s involvement in forest management, and cross-country results showing the effectiveness of local people in managing forests (Abbiw 1990, Falconer 1992, Amanor 1994, Mayers and Kotey 1996). Finally, the 1948 Forest Policy was revised and captioned “the 1994 Forest and Wildlife Policy” with more emphasis on local communities’ involvement in forest management (Ministry of Lands and Forestry 1994). The 1994 Forest and Wildlife Policy aims to strengthen the Collaborative Forest Management approach. For instance, agroforestry system, where farmers interplant their food crops with specified tree species on degraded forestland to reduce pressure on forests and minimise deforestation, was introduced (Prah 1997, Franzel and Scherr 2002). The Modified Taungya System was also introduced. This system is where portions of degraded forest reserves are given to forest fringe communities to inter-plant food crops with trees, and nurture these trees into maturity under an agreement in which roles and benefit sharing are specified (Adjei et al. 2012, Acheampong et al. 2016). However, some researchers argue that not much success has been achieved from these forest management strategies partly because of poor partnership approaches, inadequate incentives, and a mismatch about

4


priority needs between the forestry institution and the local communities (Brown 2002, Blay et al. 2008). Currently, the Forest Services Division under the Forestry Commission of Ghana oversees the management of forest reserves in the country. The lessons from the past failures in community partnerships in forest management and the need to effectively manage forests in the country led to the adoption of the 1994 Forest and Wildlife Policy, and this was revised in the year 2012. The revised policy aims to promote a more collaborative and sustainable forest management with communities and ensure equitable benefit sharing to improve the livelihoods of forest dependent communities (Akamani and Hall 2015). The previous forest management systems (e.g. the Taungya System) failed because community members did not benefit directly from their participation. This implies that direct benefits are a key factor for communities’ participation in forest management. However, the communities’ participation in the management of the Suhuma Forest Reserve is mainly voluntary. The motivation for the community members to participate in managing the forest reserve requires further research.

METHODS Sefwi-Wiawso Forest District is located within the Western region of Ghana (Figure 1). The district is made up of five major forest reserves: Suhuma (359.78 km2), Sui (333.90 km2), Tano-Suhein (84.60 km2), Muro (63.61 km2) and Santoman (21.20 km2) (RMSC 2016). The Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Services Division manages these reserves. The Forest District falls within the Moist Evergreen Forest (High Forest Zone) of Ghana. This area receives double maxima rainfall, March– July and August-November, and the annual rainfall ranges between 1200 mm and 1600 mm. The annual temperatures fall between 26°C and 29°C. The human population of the District at its creation in 1988 was about 73,000 but has doubled as at 2010 with average household size of six persons (GSS 2013). The SefwiWiawso District has one Traditional Council headed by the Paramount Chief of the Traditional Area. The Traditional Council has a membership of 65 Chiefs each of whom rules some communities (Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Service Division 2010). These Chiefs interact with the Forest Services Division on issues related to the forest reserves within their areas of jurisdiction. Suhuma Forest Reserve, one of the five reserves in the District, was chosen for the research because it was first used to assess the feasibility of community partnership in the management of forest reserves. This feasibility study was carried out in 2002 by the Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Services Division (Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Service Division 2010). It was also the reserve in the Sefwi-Wiawso Forest District whose fringe communities were entreated to form Community Forest Committees for its management. These committees have been active since 2010. The Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Services Division initiated this idea as a strategic means

towards a more effective management of the Suhuma Forest Reserve. According to the Forest Services Division, this management strategy was introduced because the communities are the closest to the reserve, which implies that they will be more effective in tracking illegal activities in the reserve than the foresters. The Suhuma Forest Reserve is located within two administrative Districts, namely Sefwi-Wiawso and SefwiAkontombra districts (Figure 2). The reserve falls within Latitudes 5°56′ N and 6°11′ N and Longitudes 2°21′ W and 2°36′ W, and is sandwiched by approximately 45 communities (Figure 3). Twelve (12) of these communities have Community Forest Committees, which were formed by the Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Services Division. Their role is to assist in the management of the forest reserve. The 12 communities were selected for the study. Each community had one committee with varied composition (Table 1). The Forest Services Division provided a list of the committees, which contained details of their locations and membership for easy identification. Focus Group Discussion, with the aid of an interview guide, was conducted for each of the committees. This means that 12 Focus Group Discussions were held; one in each community. Some of the Community Forest Committees were composed of less than six members. This means that the rule of thumb of 6–8 members of a focus group (Manoranjitham and Jacob 2007) could not be complied with in this study. Some of the Committees could have been merged in order to meet the required size for Focus Group Discussion but that could have undermined the quality of the data since some of the members were reluctant to divulge their motivation to participate in the management of the forest reserve to people outside their committees. The financial constraints associated with transporting them from one community to the other for the group discussion also hampered the practicality of merging some of the Committees for Focus Group Discussion. For each committee, all the members participated in the discussion (see Table 1 for the membership of each committee). The contents of the discussion included management roles, motivation for participating in the management of the forest reserve, the benefits derived from their participation, and the challenges faced in the performance of the assigned roles. The Focus Group Discussion was audio recorded and transcribed. After the Focus Group Discussion, each committee member was interviewed, with the aid of researcher-administered questionnaire, for data related to his/her household social and economic characteristics as well as motivation for participating in the management of the forest reserve. Within each community, equal numbers of non-committee members were sampled for interview using researcher-administered questionnaire for comparative analysis. Within each house of a Community Forest Committee member, one non-committee member was interviewed. The selection was based on who is available and willing to be interviewed. In situations where a Community Forest Committee member lived in a single-


FIGURE 1 Ghana Map Showing Western Region and the Study Reserve

Source: Resource Management Support Center of Forestry Commission, Ghana, 2014

5

6


FIGURE 2 Suhuma Forest Reserve in District’s Context


household house, the neighbouring house was used. Two Technical Officers (key informants) from the Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Services Division were also interviewed with the use of interview guide for information about the involvement of the communities in the management of the reserve. This was done for data triangulation and validation purposes. The household data, which were quantitative in nature were analysed using descriptive statistics (means, modes, and ratios) to examine the management roles played by the committee members, the benefits accrued to them from their managerial tasks, and the challenges they faced in the management of the forest reserve. Content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data that were obtained from the focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The qualitative data provided further insight into the results of the household data analysis (e.g. the motivation of the households to participate in the management of the forest reserve and the challenges they encountered in the performance of their roles).

RESULTS Background of the Members and Non-Members of the Community Forest Committees The results of the survey showed that almost eight in ten of the members of the Community Forest Committees were males. According to the Forest Officers who supervised the formation of the committees, the male dominance was not deliberate but resulted from the voluntary nature of the work. This is a characteristic of Ghana and some other African countries where more males than females take voluntary decisions to engage in communal work (Acheampong and Dinye 2015, Acheampong et al. 2016). On the part of the Non-Forest Community Committee Members, the female respondents were more than that which appeared in the Forest Committees. This was because females headed 41% of the households visited at the time of the interview. Their male counterparts were out of home and some


7

FIGURE 3 Fringe Communities of Suhuma Forest Reserve


were not married but living with their younger siblings. The mean age of the members of the Community Forest Committees was 47 years (minimum = 28 years and maximum = 68 years) and the non-members of the Community Forest Committees was 43 years (minimum = 30 years and maximum = 66 years). The results imply that the respondents were experienced age-wise and could be involved in forest management programs once they are given the required orientation. Forest management strategy, roles, and guiding principles Forest management plan and the involvement of the communities The Suhuma Forest Reserve has a 10-year management plan, which was prepared in 2010 by the Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Services Division. According to the Division, forest

management plans are prepared every 10 years. These plans outline the various projects and activities to be carried out within the 10-year timeframe. The purpose of the current plan is to: a) maintain the protective function of the forest with due regard to the maintenance of suitable climatic conditions for agricultural crops; and b) increase the proportion of economic timber species to satisfy the demand for timber on sustainable yield basis. A review of the plan revealed that the Forest Services Division did not consider the involvement of fringe communities in the management of the reserve. According to the Forest Officers interviewed, it was in 2010, after the plan had been prepared that the Forest Services Division decided to involve the fringe communities in the management of the reserve. The willingness of the fringe community members to collaborate in the protection of the reserve made them accept the Forest Services Division’s proposal to form committees to assist in managing the reserve. These committees were formed in

8


TABLE 1 Fringe Communities and Number of Respondents Interviewed Number of CFCMsa

Number of Non-CFCMsb

Wruwru

4

4

8

Bopa

5

5

10

Bopa Nkwanta

3

3

6

Kofikrom

5

5

10

Asiekrom

7

7

Betenase

6

Adiembra

Community

Total

TABLE 2 Number of Times Committees Received Training, 2010 to 2014 Community

Frequency of Training/Workshop

Aboboyaa

2 times since inception

Adiembra


Ahwiaa


Amafie


Apeakrom


14

Asiekrom


6

12

Bedii


6

6

12

Betenase


Amafie

5

5

10

Bopa


Ahwiaa

4

4

8

Bopa Nkwanta


Apeakrom

4

4

8

Kofikrom

1 since inception

Aboboyaa

2

2

4

Wruwru


Bedii

5

5

10

Total

56

56

112

Source: Sefwi Wiawso Forest Services Division, 2014, and Authors’ Field Survey, 2014 a : Community Forest Committee Members b : Non-Community Forest Committee Members

almost all the fringe communities of Suhuma Forest Reserve. The committees had no fixed membership (Table 1) although according to the Sefwi-Wiawso Forest Services Division, four people per committee were needed for the initial stage of the committee’s formation and operation. Some of the committees (in Bopa, Kofikrom, Asiekrom, Betenase, Adiembra, Amafie and Bedii communities) were over-subscribed, which was attributed to the interest of the members of the Traditional Council to be members of the committees. An interview with one traditional leader about his motivation to be a member of a committee led to the following remark: “Our ancestors were living here and taking care of the forest without any government intervention. The forest was not disturbed at all since everyone was following strict traditional values at that time. Now, government regulations and human activities are modifying the state of the forest. If an opportunity like this has come for me to help in managing my ancestral forest, why wouldn’t I do so”? This was the reason for the oversubscription of the committees in some of the fringe communities. Membership of a committee was based on the willingness and availability of the people to participate in the management of the reserve. Prior to the formation of the committees, the Forest Services Division contacted the Traditional Councils of each of the fringe communities and presented their proposals to them. The Council Members then made public announcements in their respective communities. The Forest Services Division stated explicitly that the work was voluntary and that members shall not be remunerated. A date for the formation of the Community Forest Committees was scheduled and personnel from the Forest Services Division went to the

Source: Sefwi Wiawso Forest Services Division, 2014.

various communities to register the committees. Personal identification cards were produced for the members after which they were inducted on how to: a) educate community members on the need to protect the reserve, b) safely confront illegal operators, c) track illegal operators and d) stop wildfires from spreading. Each of the committee members was given a pair of wellington boots, raincoat, cutlass, and a prescribed T-shirt to be worn anytime they patrolled the reserve. According to the members of the Community Forest Committees, the logistics enhanced their work. However, since the inception of the project (in 2010), these logistics have been distributed once. According to the Forest Services Division, the members of the Community Forest Committees have been refreshed, albeit irregularly, on their roles and how these roles are to be performed (Table 2). Forest management roles and guiding rules The members of the Community Forest Committees were required to perform three roles. First is to assist in the prevention of bushfires. One Technical Officer from the Forest Services Division stated, “Bushfire is one of the major causes of forest destruction in this area. Hunters and farmers set fire during the dry season to catch game and prepare their farmlands, respectively. Sometimes, the fire gets out of control and spreads to the reserve causing destruction to tree species and other living organisms. These hunters are difficult to apprehend and we cannot stop the farmers from burning their cleared lands. The only preventive mechanism we can adopt is to create fire belts”. The members of the Community Forest Committees said they assist the Forest Guards to create fire belts around the reserve during the dry season. According to some Forest Guards, sometimes the non-members of the Community Forest Committees assist in the creation of fire belts because they (the non-members) also benefit from the reserve. All the non-members of the Community Forest


Committees interviewed in the study disclosed that the protection of the reserve is the collective responsibility of all the fringe communities whether or not one is part of a Community Forest Committee. Secondly, the members of the Community Forest Committees were to educate other community members on the need to protect the reserve. They stated that the reserve is the property of the communities. It is, therefore, the communities’ responsibility to protect and preserve it. A member of one Community Forest Committee stated, “If anything bad happens to the forest, it is not my family alone that will be affected adversely. Everybody in this community will suffer from that”. Due to this, anytime the members of the Community Forest Committees got the opportunity through either communal labour meetings or community gatherings, they made short announcements to the community members to keep watch over the reserve. In addition, the members of the Community Forest Committees stated that through casual conversations, they were able to discuss with, and sensitize their friends and neighbours on the need to protect the reserve for sustained benefits. Finally, the members of the Community Forest Committees were to assist in tracking and reporting illegal operators. According to the committee members, when one member hears the sound of a chainsaw, he or she summons the others to investigate. Where the chainsaw operator is operating illegally, the committee members confront him in a friendly manner. After eliciting adequate information about the operator, they then advise him on the procedure to follow to obtain a permit to operate in the forest. Immediately after they depart from the scene, they report the incident to their superiors. When there is a Forest Guard nearby, he quickly comes over with others or a police officer to arrest the illegal operator. From the survey, all the committees have lodged at least a report about illegal activities in the reserve to the Forest Services Division (Table 3). This implies that fringe communities could effectively combat illegal activities in forest reserves given the mandate to do so. Some easy-to-observe rules guided the works of the Community Forest Committees. Some of the rules are to wear wellington boots and raincoats when going into the reserve, go into the reserve in groups, and only show ID Cards when confronting illegal operators. The other rules are as follows: a) do not attempt to arrest illegal operators; just track and report them, b) do not confront illegal operators authoritatively, c) do not struggle with illegal operators, and d) do not use gun for this voluntary work. The members of the Community Forest Committees admitted that the rules were flexible and simple to comply with. What they were worried about was that some of their colleagues did not have ID Cards so anytime they went on operations, the non-card bearers felt odd. Motivation for participating in the management of the reserve The members of the Community Forest Committees derived no direct benefits from the forest management roles they

9

TABLE 3 Number of Illegal Cases in the Reserve Reported by the Committees, 2010 to 2014 Community

Number of cases reported

Wruwru


Bopa


Bopa Nkwanta

1 since inception

Asiekrom


Kofikrom


Adiembra


Betenase

1 since inception

Amafie


Ahwiaa


Aboboyaa


Apeakrom


Bedii


Authors’ Field Survey, February 2014.

performed. Their work was voluntary without any remuneration. The committee members derived some benefits from the reserve that were not related to the management roles they performed. It was observed that all the fringe communities had access to non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in the reserve. Apart from Thursday, which was a Taboo day (meaning all humans should stay away from the reserve), one could go into the forest to pick NTFPs on any other day and at any time. There were restrictions on what one could take from the forest. A non-committee member stressed that: “as long as you collect items from the forest for household use, you will not have any problem with the Forest Services Division. But when you start collecting items in huge quantities illegally to sell, then the Forest Services Division will sanction you if you are caught”. No one was allowed to pick NTFPs for commercial use without permit from the Forest Services Division. The NTFPs the inhabitants accessed from the reserve included canes, fruits, snails, mushrooms, pestle, and game mainly for domestic use. The respondents did not consider the collection of NTFPs as a major survival strategy, yet the least quantity they collected and consumed was valued to range between GH¢ 10 (equivalent to US$ 4.2) to GH¢ 100 (equivalent US$ 40.2) per month. It emerged from the analysis of the household data that one in five of the members of the Community Forest Committees and two in five of the noncommittee members sold part of the NTFPs they gathered from the reserve. Although not on large quantities (see Table 4), both members and non-members of the Community Forest Committee derived economic benefits from the reserve. This implies that the committee members did not take up the management roles for any additional personal gains since they had access to the NTFPs in the reserves prior to becoming members of the Community Forest Committees. However, the committee members wished to sustain the supply of the NTFPs, which could explain their motivation to participate in the management of the forest reserve.

10


TABLE 4 Average Revenue per Month from Sale of NTFPs Average monthly revenue (GH¢)*

CFCMs

Non-CFCMs

No. of Respondents

%

No. of Respondents

%

20

1

12.5

1

9.1

30

2

25.0

3

27.3

40

5

62.5

2

18.2

50

-

-

5

45.5

Total

8

100.0

11

100.0

Source: Authors’ Field Survey, February 2014. *GH¢1 = US$0.40201 as at February 2014

The following was the remark from the participants of a Focus Group Discussion held at Adiembra about the reason why they participated in the management of the reserve: “we all know that we collect some products from the reserve which help us in different ways. Therefore, it does not make sense if we refuse to get involved in the management of the reserve and allow these benefits to be eroded by illegal activities”. From Table 4, some of the non-committee members got more benefits from the reserve than the committee members. This implies that it is not always for personal gains that people participate in managing forests. The Community Forest Committees were important social assets. The members supported one another during occasions such as child outdooring, wedding and funeral ceremonies. Sometimes, the members of the committees helped each other in building their housing units and tilling their farmlands. The major livelihood option in the fringe communities was farming as presented in Table 5. The farmers interplant cocoa with food crops for consumption as shown in Figure 4. In this

regard, the Community Forest Committees have become important social assets used by members to build and sustain other livelihood assets. Some researchers claimed that the survival of forest dwellers mostly depends on the benefits they derive from the forest (Timko et al. 2010, Van Gevelt 2013). The results of this study are contrary to this claim. As presented in Table 6, none of the households covered in this study depended solely on NTFPs for survival. These economic activities were the results of their own investment efforts. Therefore, the motivation of the members of the Community Forest Committees to participate in the management of the forest reserve was their belief that it is a property they have inherited from their ancestors, which must be protected through collective efforts. It emerged from the Focus Group Discussions held in all the communities that the members of the Community Forest Committees hoped that they would be given degraded portions of the reserve to restore through farming. Participants from Asiekrom remarked, “We were hoping that the Forest

TABLE 5 Acres of Farmlands Cultivated by the Respondents CFCMs Sizes

Non-CFCMs

Number of Respondents

%

Sizes


%

4

11

19.6

3

8

15.1

5

4

7.1

4

2

3.8

6

3

5.4

5

2

3.8

7

3

5.4

6

6

11.3

8

1

1.8

7

3

5.7

9

5

8.9

8

10

18.9

10

7

12.5

9

6

11.3

12

5

8.9

10

2

3.8

13

3

5.4

11

4

7.5

14

1

1.8

12

7

13.2

15+

13

23.2

13

1

1.9

Total

56

100.0

Source: Authors’ Field Survey, February 2014.

15+

2

3.8

Total

53

100.0


11

FIGURE 4 Mixed Cropping on Farmlands in the Fringe Communities

Source: Authors’ Field Survey, February 2014

Services Division would allocate to us degraded portions of the Suhuma Forest Reserve to restore through farming. However, we have waited for four years now and nothing has happened. We are continuing with this task because of what we get from the reserve. If we stop and people destroy it, the benefits the entire community derives from the forest would be no more”. The foregoing implies that the members of the Community Forest Committees are motivated to participate in the management of the forest reserve because of their belief that its sustenance could mean the sustenance of the supply of the NTFPs. In summary, the committees had both general and personal goals that motivated them to participate in the management of the forest reserve. While the general goal was to protect the forest from depletion, the personal goals were to sustain the supply of NTFPs and gain access to degraded forestlands to farm. It appears that the committee members were more interested in their personal goals than the core

aim that led to the establishment of the Committees – the protection of the forest. This is evident in some of the challenges the committees claimed they faced. Challenges faced by the Community Forest Committees According to the Community Forest Committees, their work has been hampered by a myriad of challenges, which threaten the sustenance of the committees. Some of these challenges are explained in the succeeding paragraphs. a) Lack of motivational packages All the members of the Community Forest Committees admitted that they have not been given any motivational package since they started their voluntary work. They disclosed that they have not requested for any wages since they were told from the onset that their work was voluntary, but rewarding them for even once a year would be appreciated.

12


TABLE 6 Sources of Livelihoods of the Respondents CFCMs Sources


%

Farming

6

10.7

Farming, baking, NTFPs

1

1.8

Farming, drinking bar, NTFPs

1

1.8

Farming, NTFPs, beekeeping

1

1.8

Farming, trading, NTFPs

8

14.3

Farming, trading, hunting, NTFPs

2

3.6

Farming, Driving, NTFPs

5

8.9

Farming, Hair dressing, NTFPs

2

3.6

Farming, hunting, NTFPs

3

5.4

18

32.1

Farming, NTFPs, Photography

1

1.8

Farming, metal works, NTFPs

1

1.8

Farming, tailoring, NTFPs

2

3.6


2

3.6

Farming, teaching, NTFPs

3

5.4

56

100.0


%

15

26.8

Food vending, farming, NTFPs

3

5.4

Farming, drinking spot

2

3.6

Driving

1

1.8


16

28.6

Farming, fishing, NTFPs

1

1.8

Farming, driving, NTFPs

3

5.4

Hair dressing

1

1.8

Farming, hunting, NTFPs

5

8.9

Trading

1

1.8

Farming, Barbering, NTFPs

3

5.4

Farming, NTFPs

Total Non-CFCMs Sources Farming

Tailor/Seamstress, farming, NTFPs

3

5.4

Trading, hunting, NTFPs

1

1.8

Tailor/ Seamstress

1

1.8

56

100.0

Total Source: Authors’ Field Survey, February 2014.

A participant of the Focus Group Discussion held in Bedii stressed that: “it is sad to know that other people who do similar works (e.g. Forest Guards and Concession Guards) are compensated but we are not. The lack of motivational packages is demotivating us gradually”. Forest Guards and Concession Guards were mandated to manage the reserve. According to the Forest Officers

interviewed, the Forest Guards were required to patrol the reserve, arrest illegal operators, and create fire belts against bushfires in the dry season. They do these with assistance from the members of the Community Forest Committees. While the Forest Guards were remunerated and incentivised with motor cycles, the members of the Community Forest Committees were not given any incentives. The Concession Guards, who play similar roles, were also remunerated. b) Inadequate enabling logistics Aside from their concerns on motivation, the members of the Community Forest Committees disclosed that they encountered difficulties in undertaking their routine operations due to inadequate logistics. A committee member stated, “We have been using our own cutlasses and working gears to do this job. However, the Forest Services Division supplies the Forest Guards, who we sometimes assist, working gears”. According to the Committee members, they held meetings in the year 2010 to discuss their concerns, which included: a) the provision of flashlights for night patrols, b) provision of safety gears (i.e. boots, raincoats, and cutlasses) once in a year, and c) provision of digital cameras to capture scenes of illegal operations. These were then forwarded to the Forest Services Division for consideration. However, to date, the Division has not addressed these concerns. When personnel from the Forest Services Division were interviewed on the above issues, they stated that the committees were under trial and once they become fully recognized as capable partners in the management of the reserve, their concerns would be given the needed consideration. The failure to communicate this to the committee members could demotivate them to continue to perform their supportive roles in the management of the forest reserve. There was no clarity on how these committees would be assessed as capable and when they would be recognized remained unanswered. This requires resolution to foster objectivity and transparency. c) Scarcity of land for farming while degraded lands are available The members of the Community Forest Committee also lamented over scarcity of land for farming and the reluctance of the Forest Services Division to allocate degraded lands to them for farming. The latter threatens the sustainability of the committees since almost half (i.e. 57%) of these committee members were motivated to participate in the management of the reserve with the hope of gaining access to degraded lands for farming purposes. The hope was based on their experiences with the Forest and Wildlife Master Plan under the Natural Resources Management Program (NRMP), where community members were allowed to access degraded lands for farming purposes. The beneficiary communities interplanted food crops with trees. These communities were able to nurture the trees to maturity although the Forest Services Division failed to fulfil the benefit sharing agreement it had with the communities. According to the Forest Officers interviewed, the Forest Services Division has not granted the request of the committee members because it fears that farming could harm the forest reserve.


13

TABLE 7 Previous Reforestation Projects carried out in the Study Area, 2002–2006 Communities involved

Implementation year

Size of forest nurtured

Current use of the forest nurtured

2002

20 hectares

Handed over to FSD and serving productive purposes

2002 and 2006

125 hectares

Handed over to FSD but has not been harvested yet

2005

25 hectares


Wruwru Bopa Betenase Adiembra

2006

40 hectares


Ahwiaa

2002

20 hectares

Handed over to FSD and serving productive purposes

Authors’ Field Survey, February 2014

DISCUSSION Forest management strategies and participatory roles Forests require management systems whether centralized, localized, or collaborative. These systems would show the regulatory and management bodies as well as the activities and guiding principles for sustainable management of the forests. The Suhuma Forest Reserve has a management system outlined in a documented, which did not cover the involvement of local people in the management of the reserve. This made the people unrecognized as partners in forest management; a reason why some fringe communities do not participate in the management of forest resources (Kideghesho et al. 2007). In countries such as Burkina Faso, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Indonesia where local people are recognized and officially documented as partners in forest management, myriad of successes ranging from environmental, social and economic have been reported (Maskey et al. 2006, Djamhuri 2008, Saito-Jensen et al. 2010, CoulibalyLingani et al. 2011). Isolating fringe communities from forest management roles could result to increased illegalities in the forest and ultimately lead to continued deforestation since the communities have direct and immediate contact to the forest. Based on the fact that forest fringe communities obtain some assets from the forest often in the forms of NTFPs, it is imperative to involve them in managing and protecting their sources of livelihoods. Community participation in forest management has been practiced in Ghana for decades and has undergone series of reviews (FAO/UNEP 1981, Prah 1994, Blay et al. 2008). Involving the fringe communities of the Suhuma Forest Reserve in its management is, therefore, not a new paradigm. However, the previous forms of participation involved some benefit sharing arrangements at the maturity of the trees grown (Adjei et al. 2012, Akamani et al. 2015, Danquah 2015, Acheampong et al. 2016). The situation in the study area was different because the work of the committees was voluntary with no monetary gains. The committee members availed themselves for the voluntary work because they had access to NTFPs for domestic and productive uses. To them, the reserve is a common property that needs to be protected from degradation. They also hope to access the degraded portions of the reserve for farming purposes. This confirms claims expressed in the conventional literature that access to forest resources,

including forestland, influences a household’s decision to participate in the management of the forest (Van Gevelt 2013, Adhikari et al. 2016). The closer and more accessible forest resources are to a household especially the poor, the more willing they are to assist in its management for livelihood support purposes (Maryudi and Krott 2012, Musyoki et al. 2016). Forest management roles performed by fringe communities vary geographically. In Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, community members have the power to market timber resources they have nurtured to maturity; thereby exercising similar roles, responsibilities and power as state forest institutions (Roy et al. 2013, Lestari et al. 2015, Moktan et al. 2016, Subedi and Timilsina 2016). Similar arrangements are in place in Kenya and Burkina Faso (Coulibaly-Lingani et al. 2011, Musyoki et al. 2016). However, the Community Forest Committees of the Suhuma Forest Reserve had no planting, nurturing, or marketing rights or responsibilities over the reserve. People who have volunteered to work should have been given significant roles similar to that of the Forest Guards through which they would get some benefits. Ghana’s forest management dimension involving communities has transited from community forestry where trees grown were handed over to the government at maturity, to community forestry in which benefit sharing arrangements apply (FAO/UNEP 1981, Forestry Commission of Ghana 2003, Danquah 2015). Nonetheless, the management roles played by the fringe community members in this study area were different from the known practices. While tree-crop planting systems were practiced in the country to rehabilitate degraded forest and improve the livelihoods of the forest dwellers (Blay et al. 2008, Akamani and Hall 2015), the involvement of the communities in managing the Suhuma Forest Reserve has nothing to do with tree-crop planting. The members of the Community Forest Committees were to assist in the prevention of wild fires (which non-committee members also undertake sometimes), educate other community members on the need to protect the reserve, and track illegal operators. This, according to the committees, is a passive form of participation in forest management and could demotivate and gradually render the committees dysfunctional over time. Benefits from participating in forest management Most forest dwellers participate in forest management to secure their livelihoods (Moktan et al. 2016, Subedi and

14


Timilsina 2016). However, evidence from the fringe communities of the Suhuma Forest Reserve is on the contrary. The members of the Community Forest Committees derived no direct benefits in the form of remuneration from the reserve in relation to their management roles. The NTFPs they accessed from the reserve were also available to non-committee members. Both committee and non-committee members obtained incomes from the sale of surplus NTFPs. The evidence from this study indicates that sometimes non-committee members got higher incomes from the sale of NTFPs than committee members. The only immediate benefits committee members derived were the social assets that have been built, which have enhanced their survival in the fringe communities. These benefits were unanticipated during the formation of the committees. While some communities in Ghana have been engaging in forest management for benefit sharing purposes (Adjei et al. 2012, Akamani et al. 2015, Danquah 2015, Acheampong et al. 2016), the prime concern of the members of the Community Forest Committees was to protect the reserve even if they would not get any monetary benefits from it. Even though, they had an intrinsic hope to get degraded forestlands to farm which has not been met, that has not undermined the performance of their roles. Forest and concession guards played similar roles as the members of the Community Forest Committees. The only difference was that the guards were remunerated while the committee members worked voluntarily. Being recognized as a body capable of managing forest influences people’s decision to participate in forest management regardless of benefits arrangements (Akamani and Hall 2015, Akamani et al. 2015). In the fringe communities, access to NTFPs appears to be enough motivation to strive to sustain the forest. This appears to be consistent with a claim in the conventional literature that the need to sustain benefits derived from forest reserves by community members motivates these members to participate in the management of the forest (Maryudi and Krott 2012, Adhikari et al. 2014). However, access to degraded forestlands for farming could have been an added advantage for the restoration of the degraded forest as well as its sustenance. Sustainable community forest management: Challenging issues and the way forward The community members availed themselves for voluntary forest management but they faced some challenges. These included lack of motivational packages, inadequate enabling logistics, and scarcity of land for farming although degraded portions of forest could be made available for farming. Incentives such as logistics, food for work, and special prizes for competition among groups could be used as strategies to promote effective participation in forest management. Poor understanding of the influence of these incentive structures could lead to dysfunctional committees (Blay et al. 2008, Djamhuri 2008, Lestari et al. 2015). From the survey, the Forest Services Division does not recognize the Committees as capable yet to actively assist in the management of the

reserve, hence its reluctance to provide them with enough logistics. The issues of distrust and neglect of concerns are some of the reasons why some forest dwellers do not participate in forest management (Blay et al. 2008). Addressing the concerns of people who have willingly devoted themselves to the management of a resource will motivate them to manage the resource effectively and sustainably. One motivational factor that influences people to participate in forest management is access to forestland for farming to increase their household earnings (Lestari et al. 2015). The nearness of local people to forested areas influences them to voluntarily participate in forest management so that they could increase their land holdings while rendering their services to the environment (Emtage and Suh 2004, Maskey et al. 2006). Denying voluntary forest managers their objective for participating in forest management is a demotivation factor to their work. The Forest Services Division would not be able to achieve fully its objective to reverse deforestation if reforestation projects are not included in the voluntary participatory forest management program. Forest dwellers utilize products from the forest. In order to ensure a win-win situation, the dwellers who are participants in forest management should be allotted degraded forest lands to inter-plant their food crops with endangering tree species so that reforestation will take place while the farmers benefit from their cultivated crops on the same piece of land. This approach could also lead to the restoration of biodiversity, and improvement in the livelihoods of community participants.

CONCLUSION Fringe communities of forests consider themselves as owners of the forests and as such commit themselves to the management of the resource. Since forest fringe communities have access to resources in the forest, in most cases, they render voluntary services towards the sustainability of the forest. However, government institutions sometimes do not fully trust the local people as capable partners in managing forests. These local people are therefore excluded from management decisions and tasks. This ideology of formal institutions has made most fringe communities reluctant to participate in forest management and this has, to some extent, contributed to deforestation. Forest dwellers may have varied motivational factors to participate in forest management. Recognizing these influential factors and making them available is a way of portraying to forest dwellers that they are capable of managing the forest. Voluntary participation in forest management is a will power backed by some rationales. This study examined what motivated some fringe community members of Suhuma Forest Reserve to participate in the management of the reserve. Analysing data gathered through surveys and focus group discussions, the results showed that members of the Community Forest Committees volunteered for this work because they considered the reserve as their common property, which should be sustained and regenerated for use by future generations. Their motivation to participate in the management of


the reserve was also borne out of the benefits they obtained from the NTFPs they gathered from the forest, and their hope of accessing degraded lands for farming. Capitalizing on these motivations to include reforestation projects in the current participatory roles would make the committees more functional and committed, achieve the conservative and productive functions of the reserve, and improve on the livelihoods of the participants through the crops they will grow on the reforested lands.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The valuable suggestions made by the anonymous referees are highly acknowledged and appreciated.

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Improving forest land governance: the case of developing a digital archiving system for forest land records in Bangladesh S.K. BARUAa, U.H. ABIRb and M. BOSCOLOc a

International Consultant in Natural Resources and Environmental Economics and Policy, Helsinki, Finland International Committee of the Red Cross, Dhaka, Bangladesh c Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy b


SUMMARY Land administration in Bangladesh relies significantly on paper-based records which are stored in multiple government offices. This deters public access to land records that breeds inefficiencies. This article assesses the anticipated impacts and challenges of a digital archiving system for the forest land records on the land governance in Bangladesh. The system is expected to contribute to improving land administration and governance in the country by, (i) permanently preserving forest land records, (ii) helping resolve land disputes and fight land grabbing, and (iii) improving the accessibility and transparency of these documents. However, lack of adequate funding and skilled manpower pose challenges to the sustainability and scaling up of undertaken digitization and archiving initiatives. Thus, the capacity for forest land administration should be strengthened. Land-related policy and legislative frameworks should also be reformed to fully realize the advantages of digitization. Keywords: Bangladesh, land administration, gazette notifications, digital archiving system, land-record management

Amélioration de la gestion des terres forestières: le cas du développement d’un système d’archives digitales pour l’enregistrement des terres forestières au Bangladesh S.K. BARUA, U.H. ABIR et M. BOSCOLO L’administration des terres au Bangladesh s’appuie fortement sur des archives papier, classées dans divers bureaux gouvernementaux. Ceci décourage l’accès public aux enregistrements terriens, résultant en une inefficacité générale. Cet article fait face aux impacts anticipés et au défi que lancerait un système d’archives digitales pour l’enregistrement des terres forestières sur la gestion des terres au Bangladesh. On espère que ce système contribue à l’amélioration de l’administration des terres et de la gestion dans le pays en : (i) préservant les archives des terres forestières de manière permanente, (ii) aidant à résoudre les disputes terriennes et à combattre l’accaparement des terres, et en, (iii) améliorer l’accessibilité et la transparence de ces documents. Une carence de fonds adéquats et de personnel entraîné lance toutefois des défis à la durabilité et à la croissance des initiatives d’archives et de digitalisation. C’est pourtant par ces moyens que la capacité de l’administration forestière pourrait-être fortifiée. Les cadres des politiques associées à la terre, tout comme les cadres législatifs devraient également être réformés pour réaliser pleinement les avantages de la digitalisation.

Mejora de la gobernanza de tierras forestales: el caso del desarrollo de un sistema de archivo digital para los registros de tierras forestales en Bangladesh S.K. BARUA, U.H. ABIR y M. BOSCOLO La ordenación del territorio en Bangladesh se sustenta en gran medida en registros en papel que se almacenan en varias oficinas gubernamentales. Esto impide el acceso público a los registros catastrales, lo que crea ineficiencias. Este artículo evalúa los impactos previstos y los retos de un sistema de archivo digital de los registros de tierras forestales sobre la gobernanza territorial en Bangladesh. Se espera que el sistema contribuya a la mejora de la administración de tierras y a la gobernanza en el país mediante, (i) preservar de forma permanente los registros de tierras forestales, (ii) ayudar a resolver disputas sobre tierras y luchar contra el acaparamiento de tierras, y (iii) la mejora de la accesibilidad y la transparencia de estos documentos. Sin embargo, la falta de financiación adecuada y personal cualificado plantean desafíos a la sostenibilidad y la universalización de las iniciativas emprendidas de digitalización y archivo. Por lo tanto, se debe fortalecer la capacidad de gestión de tierras forestales. Los marcos de políticas y normativos relacionados con la tierra también se deben reformar, para poder disfrutar plenamente de las ventajas de la digitalización.

Improving forest land governance

INTRODUCTION Background Land is a scarce resource for a densely populated and disasterprone country like Bangladesh. The country’s land-man ratio, i.e. land area per capita, is 0.06 hectares (FAO 2013), which is one of the lowest in the world. Land scarcity translates into intense competition for land-use. The rate of conversion of agricultural and forest land to other uses is high. About 1% of agricultural land is converted to other uses each year in the country (Hossain 2015). Likewise, the country has been experiencing land conversion from forest to non-forest uses. FAO estimates that annual deforestation during 1990–2015 in Bangladesh was 0.2% (FAO 2015). This amounts to a loss of 2 600 hectares (ha) of forest land per year on average. The situation is likely to deteriorate further in the future as the rapid growth in population and economy, and sea-level rise due to climate change will intensify the land-use competition in Bangladesh. A scientific report, prepared for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics (2013), reported that flooded areas in Bangladesh will increase by 29% with a temperature increase of 2.5°C. Yu et al. (2010) projected that about 40% of productive land is likely to be lost in the southern part of the country with a sea level rise of 65 cm. These trends demand improvements in the efficiency of land administration and management. However, land administration still uses conventional age-old paper-based records, and is characterized by inefficiencies and corruption (see, e.g. Hossain 2015). The records for one land parcel are stored in a number of government offices. As a result, land-related services are time consuming and expensive. Moreover, as paper-based records are being maintained for many years, there are cases of missing records. Thus, retrieving land records is often a cumbersome task in Bangladesh. Also, being paper-based and the way they are maintained1 (Rahman 2016, USAID 2016), available land records including those for forest lands are often deemed to be insufficient for providing land tenure security (Rahman 2016). The land administration and management system in Bangladesh falls within the jurisdiction of various departments of two ministries: the Ministry of Land (MoL), and the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs (MLJP)2 (Hossain 2015). In case of government-owned forest lands, the Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) is the primary custodian of all but the unclassed state forests (USFs). The

1 2

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USF land is owned by the MoL, but the BFD is vested with only the usage and management rights. The agencies that are part of land administration work rather independently with little coordination among them. As a result, if anyone needs to access land records or wants to transfer the property ownership rights, he/she needs to visit multiple agencies for several times for months3 and should also be ready to pay money to the officials in addition to the government fees (see, e.g. TIB 2015). On top of these, the most land records including those of forest lands are handwritten in an archaic language that most people find complicated to understand. Moreover, the last comprehensive land survey in the country (i.e. revisional survey) was done more than 35 years ago, and land ownership and land-use in most areas has changed substantially during this time. Many land parcels have been fragmented because of division due to inheritance or gift. Many even merged because of ownership change triggered by buying and selling. This means that existing land records do not reflect these changes and thus the reality on the ground in most cases providing impetus for land disputes. Land disputes often lead to violence and criminal offenses4. It is said that currently about 70% of litigations in the formal judiciary in Bangladesh stem from land disputes (Khan 2014). It was estimated that over 3.2 million landrelated cases were pending before the judiciary in the country in 2010 (E-Bangladesh 2010) and the number may have increased further by now. This figure does not account for the huge number of victims who do not feel empowered enough to approach the courts for resolves5. Inadequate documentation contributes to the complexity of resolving land disputes. Given the absence of a transparent system, other irregularities are also common (see TIB 2015). Another crucial issue is the active manipulation by the land grabbers allied with officials and backed by local political establishments. This is particularly true for the forest lands, nearly 100 000 ha of which has been encroached since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 (Rahman 2016). The issues discussed above contribute to poor and to some extent deteriorating land governance in the country. In order to improve the situation, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB), in line with the Right to Information Act 2009, has begun to explore a strategy based on digitizing land records and simplifying citizens’ access to them since 2010. Furthermore, establishing a sustainable land administration and management system based on digitization has become an important policy agenda in Bangladesh. The 7th Five Year Plan (7FYP), the main planning document of the country, proposed

It enhances the risk of faking documents. Indeed, faking of land records is rather a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. Also in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHTs), home to most of the indigenous people who constitute about 1.5% of Bangladesh’s total population, the authority over all land affairs is shared by the government’s land administration and customary institutions headed by village heads, and paramount chiefs, i.e. chiefs of revenue circles (USAID 2016). For example, registering the change of ownership of a piece of land eight different procedures are required to be completed that takes 245 days on average (USAID 2016). The clash between the Santal indigenous community members, and police and workers of a local sugar mill in Gaibandha district in the norther part over land right on 7 November 2016 is one of the most recent incident of this sort in Bangladesh (see, e.g. Karmakar and Hoque 2016). Lengthy legal proceedings are the key reason for this. Many land cases take up to 20 years to resolve through the courts (Uddin and Haque 2009).

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developing a centralized digital archiving system for forest land documents. Such an initiative is further justified by the fact that the forests support the livelihood of millions of people directly and indirectly, and the forestry sector contributes to nearly 2% of the GDP in Bangladesh (Global Forest Watch 2016). Given the importance of the sector, it has become a major challenge for the GoB to preserve forest land documents and delineate the government’s forest land ownership. Indeed, for the effective governance and enhancing the resource-management capacity of the BFD, strengthening the digitization of forest land records is indispensable. A computer-based digitization and archiving system for forest land gazette notifications6 of Bangladesh was developed in 2017. This system development was a component of the project ‘strengthening the environment, forestry and climate change capacities of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and its agencies’ (MoEF Support Project, in short)7. This is the first initiative of forest land record digitization in Bangladesh. Naturally, there is no previous study on how such an initiative can affect the land governance in the country. In fact, there is just a handful of studies (Hossain 2015, Nahrin and Rahman 2009, Rahman and Talukdar 2016, TIB 2015) on land record digitization and governance in Bangladesh. None of these studies assessed the benefits and challenges of digitization simultaneously for improving forest or other land governance in the country. There is limited research on these issues for other countries as well. Most notably, Barua et al. (2015) showed that digitization of relevant records of and introduction of ICT in forestry administration help improve forest governance by enabling citizens to report illegal forestry activities to the authorities in Laos. On the other hand, Barua and Kumar (2015) showed that lack of digitization in timber tracking operations of forestry administration provide incentives for doing illegal logging and associated timber trade in several South Asian countries and Myanmar. Besides, Deininger and Goyal (2010, 2012) found that digitization of land records makes it easier for private citizens to access credits from financial institutions in India. Prakash and De (2007) showed that access to digitized land record helps in choosing appropriate technologies and policy choices for land reforms. Enemark (2010) reported that the digitization of cadastral maps helped manage land resources more sustainable by improving policy and institutional aspects of land governance in Denmark. Like land governance, there is also a scarcity of literature on digitization and overall governance. Among the notable available literature, Croydon et al. (2016) argued that digitization, combined with necessary organizational reform, can help governments enhance the delivery of public services, save money and improve citizens’ quality of life. Likewise,

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evidences from China (Lin 2013), and India, Brazil, South Africa and Peru (Baud et al. 2014) suggest that digitization particularly through the use of geographical information (GIS) tools generate new spatial knowledge for citizens that enhances their participation in and thus improve urban governance. Objectives of the article The main objectives of this article are to document the current state of forest land records in Bangladesh, review the implications of this state for forest land governance, and describe the ongoing efforts to digitize, archive and make selected forest land records of the country publicly accessible. More specifically, it aims to examine the land surveys and current paperbased recording system, and their relations with the forest lands in Bangladesh. Then it aims to describe a recent effort to establish a digital archiving system of forest land gazette notifications and assesses its potential contribution to the improvement of forest land governance in Bangladesh. A conceptual framework is developed for supporting the assessment. The article also aims to examine the challenges associated with the archiving system, and offers recommendations to improve forest land governance in the country based on the analysis carried out.

METHODOLOGY This study is based on a review of existing literature as well as expert consultations. Since the scientific literature on the linkages between records digitization and forest land governance is scarce, we relied extensively on project documents and technical reports from Bangladesh and abroad. The scientific literature was identified by searching Google Scholar. The project documents and technical reports were identified by Google search. This information was complemented by material collected directly through personal communication with project officials. The key terms used for search scientific and other literature were, ‘forest land records’, ‘digitization, ‘forest land governance’, ‘land administration’ and ‘Bangladesh’. The literature review helped identify the potential impacts of record digitization on forest land governance in Bangladesh. Then, national land administration and governance experts were consulted to verify the identified potential impacts.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The links between forest land governance and land records digitization have been conceptualized in the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) of the World Bank

Forest land gazette notifications are a key forest land records in Bangladesh. See the Section ‘connection between forest land gazette notifications and land surveys’ in the next chapter for more detailed discussion. The MoEF Support Project is a four-year project started in August 2013. It is funded by the United States Agency for International Cooperation (USAID), and being implemented by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) with the technical support of FAO.


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FIGURE 1 The links between the digitization of forest land records and forest land governance

(Deininger et al. 2012). The LGAF was developed on the premise that a well-functioning land sector can boost a country’s economic growth, foster social development, shield the rights of vulnerable groups, and help with environmental protection. The LGAF is a diagnostic instrument that rates the quality of a country’s land governance on five main areas: (1) legal and institutional framework, (2) land use planning, management and taxation, (3) management of public land, (4) public provision of land information, and (5) dispute resolution and conflict management. Cost-effectiveness, accessibility and sustainability of land information is a specific part of the assessment as deemed critical to limit transaction costs and increase transparency (Deininger et al. 2012). While the LGAF provides a comprehensive framework to assess land governance, specialized agencies like FAO are developing assessment frameworks that look at the specificities of selected natural resources. For example, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (FAO 2012) provides guidance to improve the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests with the overarching goal of achieving food security for all. FAO is also developing a Forest Tenure Assessment Framework (FAO 2016), according to which forest tenure depends on (1) a good policy and legal framework, (2) capable institutions and (3) a good administration system to identify, record and protect rights. All frameworks mentioned above acknowledge that a proper land record system is critical in the protection of rights, minimize transaction costs and enhance transparency.

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Based on the frameworks mentioned above, the link between the digitization of forest land records and forest land governance can be conceptualized as in FIGURE 1. Digital forest land records make it possible to increase access to relevant information to the citizens as well as land administration, which is a precondition for improving transparency in the operations of land administration. This, in turn, contributes to empowering citizens to participate in forest land governance decisions. Increased availability and access to information contributes to increased institutional efficiency in operations and enhanced delivery of land-related public services. It also contributes to improved forest land tenure security which not only helps reduce land conflicts but also improves enjoyment of rights by the citizens resulting in, e.g. more investments8 for development and sustainable management of forest land. Ample evidence from a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America suggests that land tenure security improve overall forest governance (e.g., USAID 2012). However, one should remember that the process of digitization, in order for its advantages are realized in full, should accompany necessary reforms in land administration and relevant policy and legislative frameworks. In particular, the administration should develop adequate capacity to handle the entire digitization process as well as streamline it into its regular activities. Otherwise, digitization would rather become a burden to the administration than a blessing.

Evidence from China (Jacoby et al. 2002), Thailand (Feder et al. 1988), Latin America (Bandiera 2007), Eastern Europe (Rozelle and Swinnen 2004), and Africa (Deininger and Jin 2006, Goldstein and Udry 2008) suggests that land tenure security has positive impacts on investments and land values.

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LAND SURVEYS AND RECORDING SYSTEMS IN BANGLADESH

forest in the CS is now privatized or under a different use in the RS and BS.

Land surveys

Documents related to land ownership in Bangladesh

There have been four major land surveys in Bangladesh: the cadastral survey (CS), the state acquisition (SA) survey, the revisional survey (RS), and the Bangladesh survey (BS). The CS was conducted in the undivided Bengal province between 1888 and 1940 by the rulers of British India under the Survey Act 1887. Through this survey mouza9 maps and hand-written khatians, i.e. records of rights (ROR) were prepared. In mouza maps, each land parcel was marked by a number which was in turn referred to in the khatian of that particular plot. A khatiyan also typically contained the names of the owner (i.e. the feudal lord or Zamindaar) and the occupant, a brief narrative of the land and amount of revenue due from the occupant for that land. The CS was very comprehensive and the maps and khatians prepared through this survey were considered flawless and reliable (Ministry of Land 2018). In fact, these records are still accepted by courts in Bangladesh as a base for resolving many land disputes or lawsuits related also to forest land. The East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act 1950 abolished the Zamindaari or feudal lord system, and effectively created a provision for changing the landownership to the occupants from the Zamindaars. To facilitate bringing the land owners under the direct control of the government, a survey, known as the state acquisition (SA) survey, was conducted between 1956 and 1962. The survey followed the blueprint of the CS, meaning no new mouza maps were prepared, but due to the ownership change khatians were mutated or re-written. After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, a third survey known as the revisional survey (RS) was conducted between 1972 and 1980. Like in the CS, mouza maps and hand-written khatians were prepared under this survey. The copies of all land records from both the SA survey and RS were stored in the respective district record rooms as well as in Upazila10 or Sub-District Revenue (currently called Assistant Commissioner [AC] Land) and Tahsil (Union Parisad Land) offices. The Bangladesh Survey (BS) was started with the land survey in Dhaka city between 1999 and 2000, and is currently being carried out in other parts of the country. Both maps and khatians are being prepared on computers, meaning the land records of the BS are being stored digitally alongside the paper versions. However, the records cannot be accessed online, and only the paper version is available to the general public (Ministry of Land 2018). From a forestry perspective, a worryingly common feature of all land surveys conducted after the CS was that some forest land was lost in each of them. More specifically, some land classified as forests in the prior land survey was allocated to other uses in the subsequent one largely because of the lack of clear demarcation of the forest land boundaries. These is no reliable estimate available on how much land was considered

A number of documents are associated with the land ownership in Bangladesh. Among them, the mouza maps and khatians are produced during the land surveys. The other documents include mutation khatians, title deeds, registration of deeds and tax receipts, which all are either prepared based on or connected to the land surveys. The latter three are related to land ownership transfer. Apart from the above, forest land gazette notifications specifically concern forest land ownership (Ministry of Land 2018). All land documents are briefly described in TABLE 1.

9 10

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Connection between forest land gazette notifications, and land surveys and recording systems A governmental gazette is a public journal published periodically. It records the business and proceedings of the government, and publishes public and legal notices regarding, for example, land ownership. This means a gazette has legal power. The forest land gazette notifications in Bangladesh are published by the GoB under the Forest Act 1927. Through a gazette notification, the Ministry of Land (MoL) can declare a land which is the property of government, or over which the government has proprietary rights as the forest land. A gazette notification can also declare the legal status of a particular forest land, i.e. whether it is a reserved forest, protected forest, acquired forest or vested forest, or to initiate the process to declare forests under one of the above categories. By the power of the gazette notification, the BFD is given the control of the government-owned forest land, i.e. it looks after, on behalf of the GoB, all issues related to the management of forest land. A forest land gazette notification usually contains information about the location (district, upazila and union) of the forest land in question and the Forest Division it belongs to, as well as relevant information from the past land surveys, i.e. the mouza name, jurisdiction number, plot number, and the total area of the land. Some gazette notifications also contain the mouza maps. As the above discussion implies, the forest land gazette notifications are built upon the past land surveys and existing land management systems in Bangladesh. This means any flaws, inconsistencies and incompleteness in, and obsoleteness concerning the past land surveys are transferred to the forest land notifications. Currently, the forest land gazette notifications are stored in concerned Divisional Forest Offices of the BFD. Some notifications are also stored in the head office of the BFD located in Agargoan, Dhaka. All forest land gazette notifications are currently stored on paper copies. Distribution of the notifications in different forest circles11 of Bangladesh is given in FIGURE 2.

A mouza is the lowest unit of land administration in Bangladesh. It may or may not include any settlements. Upazilas are the second lowest tier of administration in Bangladesh. In administrative structure, they sit just below the districts, but above the union parisads, the lowest tier. There are 64 districts in Bangladesh. For administrative and management purposes, the forest area of Bangladesh is divided into eight units which are called the forest circles. Each forest circle is again divided into certain forest divisions.


TABLE 1

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Documents related to land ownership in Bangladesh Mode of archiving

Document

Description

Where archived

Concerning forest land Forest land gazette notification

Paper based

By a forest land gazette notification, the GoB declares a Concerned Divisional Forest particular land as forest land, and transfer the control of the land Offices of the BFD to BFD. Effectively it records the ownership of forest lands. Concerning all land

Mouza map

Paper based

Demonstrates all land parcels in a mouza. A land parcel is marked by a number

District record room, and AC Land and Union Land Offices

Khatian

Paper based

Contains information about land ownership and the land itself

Same as above

Mutation khatian

Paper based

Applies to a land parcel the ownership of which had changed after the last comprehensive land survey (i.e. BS) is made. To mark the change, the original khatian is amended through a process called mutation proceeding. The amended khatian is known as the mutation khatian

AC Land Office

Title deed

Paper based

A legal deed establishing the proof of right regarding the land ownership

Sub Registry Office

Registration of deed

Paper based

It is a brief of the title deed, containing date, names and descriptions of all parties and all witnesses to the deed, and a description of the property affected by the deed

Sub Registry Office

Tax receipt (khajna rashid)

Paper based

The receipt of payment of the land tax commonly known as the khajna. If land tax of a property is not paid, the government has the right to take the property under its control

Union Land Office

Source: Ministry of Land 2018.

FIGURE 2 Forest land gazette notifications in different forest circles of Bangladesh Forest Department* Number of gazette notifications 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

189 165

59 11 Central

Chittagong Rangamati Khulna

19

Coastal

9 Dhaka Social Forest

19 0 Bogra Social Forest

Jessore Social Forest

Source: Bangladesh Forest Department; *As of 9 May 2017.

PREVIOUS AND ONGOING INITIATIVES FOR LAND RECORD DIGITIZATION IN BANGLADESH Digitation of land records and archiving them in a common system with easy access to all citizens have been seen as the key first step for improving land governance in Bangladesh.

Indeed, according to Rahman and Talukdar (2016), each US dollar (USD) spent on land record digitization would bring direct and indirect benefits of worth USD 619. The direct benefit would incur from saved time and money (including having not to pay bribes) in collecting land records, while the indirect benefits from improved land tenure security and

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boost in economic growth. In fact, as mentioned in above in this article, digitization of land records and simplifying citizens’ access to them have been prioritized by the GoB as a means to improve land governance and administration in Bangladesh. The GoB, with the support of some development partners, have already taken some initiatives for land record digitalization in Bangladesh. The initiatives include: • Capacity Development of the Department of Land Records and Surveys (DLRS) and Modernization of Cadastral Maps’ Strong Preservation and Retrieval System Project (July 2010–June 2012): It was funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Under this project, a blue-print was designed for developing the digital archive of CS, SA and RS mouza maps. • Digitization of Land Survey Record Preparation and Preservation Project: 1st Phase-Computerization of Existing Mouza Maps & Khatian (July 2012–June 2016): The project was funded by the Asian Development Bank. In the current phase, it aimed to digitize about 4 million mouza maps and khatians in Chittagong district in southeastern part of the country. • Strengthening Access to Land and Property Rights for all Citizens of Bangladesh (December 2009–June 2017): It has been funded by the European Union (EU). Its main objective is to strengthen access to land and property rights for all citizens of Bangladesh. At national level the project has supported the development of a National Land Policy and setting up a registration system to produce comprehensive records of landownership. It has Ministry of Land in its ongoing work on modernizing the land survey techniques and digitalization of land records. The project covered Dhaka district and four upazilas in other districts (i.e. Jamalpur Sadar of Jamalpur district, Amtali of Borguna district, Mohanpur of Rajshahi district and Monirampur of Jessore disrict) (European Commission 2013). As the above discussion suggests, the ongoing and past initiatives to digitize the land records and improve land management in Bangladesh have not covered the whole country. Rather they are either in pilot stage covering some specific districts or sub-districts, or only in the design phase of a system aiming to cover the entire country. Moreover, these initiatives do not specifically address the issues of digitization of the forest land records. In summary, despite all initiatives, the problem with land records in Bangladesh persists.

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF DIGITAL ARCHIVING SYSTEM OF FOREST LAND RECORDS The process used for developing the digital archiving system for forest land gazette notifications has consisted of four phases: planning, design, development and implementation

(FIGURE 3). During the planning phase, system requirements regarding software and hardware have been assessed, and time and costs required for developing the system have been estimated. In the design phase a digital archiving system has been developed. A template for archiving the digital forest land gazette notifications has been developed within the archiving system. The third phase has involved the collection of the copies of all forest land gazette notifications from the Management Plan unit located in Dhaka as well as 44 divisional forest offices located throughout the country in close collaboration with the BFD Head Office. Each gazette volume has been scanned and stored on a computer-based database. For each file containing a volume, a separate metadata sheet has been prepared. This data sheet usually consists of gazette notification number, publication date, and information on concerned forest office (division, range and beat), location (district and sub-district), mouza name and number, jurisdiction list (JL) number, legal status, settlement type, land record (LR) notification number. This meta-data sheet will help locate the gazette notifications from the digital archiving system. Information from the meta-data sheets along with the scanned copy of each gazette volume has been uploaded into the digital archiving system. The system has already been launched online and is accessible to the officials of the Forest Department and MoEF, other government agencies involved in the land administration as well as the general public of Bangladesh. Training on the use, maintenance and upgradation of the system has been provided to the staffs from the MoEF and BFD.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Potential impacts of digital archiving system of forest land records The digital archiving system for forest land gazette notifications is expected to contribute to improving land management and governance in Bangladesh in a number of ways (FIGURE 4) which are explained next. Permanent preservation of forest land records Like other land records in Bangladesh, most forest land gazette notifications are shabby and handwritten paper documents sometimes going back to more than 100 years. Many of them are already brittle and damaged. In this situation, it is necessary to save all the gazettes which is the key document regarding forest land ownership. Digital archiving system will preserve the gazettes for lifetime. Resolving forest land-related disputes Generally, when a dispute regarding the forest lands occurs, gazette notifications are the first and key documents to consult for enforcing any legislation regarding fraudulent, and to establish that the BFD (on behalf of GoB) is the rightful owner of the land particularly in case of multiple claims. Thus, the main benefit of developing the digital archiving system and regularly updating it is that it will provide easy


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FIGURE 3 Development process of digital archiving system for forest land gazette notifications

FIGURE 4 Justifications of developing digital forest land record archiving system

and quick access to the notifications whenever needed. Since these documents are currently stored in divisional forest offices scattered around the country, it is time consuming to collect the gazettes in an emergency situation. According to the officials of the BFD consulted for the purpose of this article, it usually takes 7 to 15 days to transfer a gazette from one divisional forest office to another. After launching the digital archiving system, the respective authority can access the notifications from anywhere in Bangladesh through

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internet. However, one has to remember that new gazette notifications are issued and old notifications are amended by the GoB almost every year as new land is declared as forests or legal classification of existing forests changes12. Thus, the updating of the archiving system with these new and amended notifications is important to maintain the credibility of the system. An archiving system with outdated records may encourage to file new claims by private parties for forest land and thus creating new disputes or worsening the old ones.

The number of modifications or new issues have varied from none to just a few every year in the recent years.

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Fighting land grabbing Encroachment of forestland is a common phenomenon, and one of the main causes of deforestation and forest degradation in Bangladesh (Iftekhar et al. 2003, USAID 2016). The illegal ownership claims13 of forestland by private individuals or parties are also common in the country. Most encroachments and illegal ownership claims are made by rich and powerful parties with the backup and influence of local political set ups. Their common intension is to grab forest land. The land grabbers often present fake ownership documents (Rahman 2016), which are easy to make given the current paper-based land recording systems and irregularities in the land administration. Digitization and online archiving of forest land gazette notifications will help solve this problem effectively. The digital archiving system will be a powerful tool as it will provide access to the most authentic document related to forest land ownership. The Forest Department officials will be able to act swiftly against the encroachers because of quick access to land records through the system. It will also bring transparency to the forest-land record management systems in Bangladesh. The swift action against the grabbers of forest and other lands can also help avoid social unrest. The encroachers and illegal land ownership claimers – being rich, powerful and politically connected – sometimes fuels tension and even incite violence within local communities to help their cause. Failing to act swiftly against the grabbers gives rise to the risk of further escalation of the tension or violence. Indeed, the land administration in many developing countries face the challenges of corruption, lack of human resource for law enforcement and collusion. Thus, it is important to remember that digital land record is only a tool, and it can be misused as well. Better functioning of land administration Easy access to land records through the digital archiving system will help release forest land to other uses easily. Sometimes, due to lack of access to proper land ownership documents, larger area of forest land than intended is allocated to other uses. This situation is exacerbated by the limited coordination between the Ministry of Land (MoL) that owns the USF lands and the Forest Department that manages them (Hossain 2015). The district administrators with the approval from MoL but no prior consultation with the Forest Department, can lease out forest lands in many districts. For example, forest lands in some coastal districts have been leased out for shrimp culture and salt production (Rahman 2016). This lack of coordination gives rise to ambiguities and inefficiencies while leasing out forest lands. The

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digital archiving system is likely to solve this problem by bring all ownership information together in one place. Moreover, the digital archiving system will facilitate determining and collecting the correct amount of taxes and fees for particularly the USF lands that are usually leased out to private actors for e.g. raising plantations14. Similar benefits of land record digitization for accessing credits from private banks in Indian state of Andhra Pradesh are reported by Deininger and Goyal (2010, 2012). Likewise, ADB (2010) argued that ICT application in land records management enables accelerated storage, processing, and retrieval of information in land records, and thus help governments to raise significantly higher revenue from land, and deliver land-related public services more efficiently. Equitable distribution of benefits associated with carbon sequestration and ecosystem services of forests With the increasing emphasis on low-carbon development, carbon benefits and ecosystem services of forests have become important in policy discussion in Bangladesh in recent years. Indeed, the conceptual foundation of the Bangladesh Country Investment Plan for Environment, Forestry and Climate Change (2016–2021) lies in enhanced provision of ecosystem services. Likewise, the new Forestry Master Plan of Bangladesh (2016–2036), which has been recently completed, has emphasized on both ecosystem services and carbon sequestration (CRPARP 2017). For the equitable distribution of associated monetary benefits of the above services among the stakeholders, the issues related to boundaries and ownership of forest resources should be resolved first. The digitization of land records and thus easy access to them could help reduce ambiguity regarding boundaries, bring more transparency of ownership and responsibility, and ensure better relations between the forest authorities and communities (Castren and Pillai 2011). This means the digital land archiving system for forest land gazette notifications could be the essential first step towards efficiently resolving the issues crucial for the equitable distribution of benefits from non-tangible services of forests. Helping to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) Forests are indispensable for achieving all 17 SDGs, and understanding this requires a broader approach and a longterm perspective for sustainable development (CIFOR 2016). Preserving forest land documents of Bangladesh will contribute to the improvement of the forest record management. Increased application of information and communication technology (ICT) and database management in the forestry sector, as the digital archiving system for forest land gazette

Illegal ownership claims are more frequent for unclassed state forests (USF) that cover 0.72 million ha and newly accreted lands in coastal areas. Administrative ambiguities regarding USF lands give impetus to such claims. These lands are directly controlled by the Ministry of Land, but managed by the Bangladesh Forest Department that is under the MoEF. There is a lack of effective coordination between these two agencies particularly on the administrative issues regarding USFs. Digital forest land record archiving system can also promote private investment in forest land such as private plantation in USF land by reducing the red tape. Land-related red tape is considered as one of the biggest impediments for foreign investors in doing business in Bangladesh (UNPAN 2010).


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FIGURE 5 Recent budget allocation of GoB in land and other sectors 9.00% 8.00%

Share of total GoB budget 7.65%

7.89% 7.27%

7.00% 6.00%

6.26% 5.61%

5.14%

5.00% 4.00% 3.00% 2.00% 1.00%

0.46% 0.39%

0.45% 0.44%

0.00% Financial Year 2015 - 2016 Ministry of Education Ministry of Public Health & Family Welfare Ministry of Land

Financial Year 2016 - 2017 Local Government Division Law & Justice Division

Source: Ministry of Finance (www.mof.gov.bd).

notifications does, will help to achieve SDGs by helping to improve land tenure security and thus uplift the status of the forest land management. Challenges with digital archiving system Forest land record archiving system, as discussed in the previous section, is anticipated to contribute to improving the governance systems, including improvement in institutions and rule of law and structure. However, it will not solve all problems related land issues in Bangladesh. There are a number of challenges that might hinder the anticipated positive impacts. The challenges are discussed next. Lack of sufficient funding Land record digitization is a time-consuming task that requires large upfront investments. For example, an EU funded project of 7.5-year duration on digitizing land records being implemented in just four out of total 490 upazilas of Bangladesh has a total cost of about Euro 10 million. In the forest land record archiving system initiative, which is the subject matter of this article, a total of 471 forest land gazette notifications have so far been digitized and archived in 1.5 year with a cost of USD 110 000. The above examples certainly give an idea of the scale of investments required to digitize land records in entire Bangladesh. All previous and on-going land record digitization initiatives in Bangladesh have so far been funded, as discussed in the section ‘previous and ongoing initiatives for land record digitalization in Bangladesh’, by development partners. The financial contribution of GoB has been rather limited. In fact, the Ministry of Land and the Law and Justice Division – the key government agencies for handling all affairs related to land including the forest lands – receives just tiny shares of budget allocation by the GoB (FIGURE 5). The BFD itself does not have any funding for forest land records digitization

and archiving. This poses a huge challenge for sustaining the digitization initiatives undertaken with funding support from the development partners as well as taking new initiatives covering the entire country. Lack of adequate skilled manpower There is a shortage of skilled manpower in land administration and management in Bangladesh. Overall, more than 40% positions are vacant at the Department of Land Survey and Records (TIB 2015). Likewise, as land record digitization is a relatively new concept in the country, there is an acute shortage of skilled manpower in this area. Opportunities for relevant training are also scarce for the officials of the land administration. Thus, digitizing and archiving the land records, and maintaining the systems are hugely challenging. This is particularly true for the forest land record archiving system. As new paper-based forest land gazettes are issued by the government almost on a regular basis, the system needs to be updated by digitizing and uploading them. The system also needs regular maintenance and upgradation. However, the BFD – the custodian of the forest land records – does not have any specialized staff looking after the digitization. Moreover, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, which hosts the archiving system, has only one staff looking after all information technology related matters in the ministry. This means there is lack of skilled manpower in adequate number to update, maintain and upgrade the forest land record archiving system. This puts the sustainability of the system after the end of MoEF Support Project in jeopardy. Risks of abuse and obsoleteness The digital forest land record archiving system, like any other digital system, becomes vulnerable to security risks such as hacking, if not maintained and adequately upgraded regularly. Moreover, lack of regular updating with newly issued gazette notifications will make it obsolete and thus useless. Resource

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constraints particularly with funding and manpower, as discussed in the previous two sections, increase the risks of abuse and obsoleteness.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The initiative taken for developing an online-based digital archiving system for forest land gazette notifications has opened up a new horizon in improving forest land governance in Bangladesh. It is a tool to improve access to information related to forest land. This in turn will help improve transparency and efficiency in land administration and land tenure security, enhance citizens’ participation in governance activities, and reduce land-related conflicts (FIGURE 1). However, one should bear in mind that the problem with administration and governance of forest and other lands in the country is the product of unresolved issues that have centuries old history. Hence, it requires a massive reform which will take time. Any such reform must address the three core functions, i.e. record keeping, registration of land titles and settlement of land rights (Hossain 2015). The digital archiving system of forest land gazette notifications directly addresses the record keeping function only. Other problems regarding forest land ownership remain unsolved. Nevertheless, it is certainly a first step towards forest land governance reform, and improving overall forest land governance in Bangladesh. It also remains unclear whether digital copies of paper documents have the same legal standing of the originals. Legislation should be reviewed to check if this is the case. In any event, access to digital records will enhance transparency, accessibility, and reduce the transaction costs involved in consulting the gazette notifications. Based on the lessons learned from the development and operationalization of the digital archiving system described in this paper the following recommendations can be drawn: • The MoEF should continue to update the archiving system by digitizing and uploading the new forest land gazette notifications to be published in the future. • The archiving system that is already developed should go through system maintenance and upgrading of software and hardware on a regular basis. The MoEF should take initiative to strengthen the capacity, by arranging necessary trainings, to a select group its officials so that they can do the system updating and maintenance by themselves. • The Ministry should inform other agencies of land administration in Bangladesh about the archiving system through, for example, introductory workshops and information bulletins. The latter could include instructions for using the system. This type of communication will enhance the level of use of the system by, and contribute to improving coordination among, the agencies of the land administration. • General public should also be informed about the system through, for example, media. This will promote transparency of the information offered by the system.

• To maximize the usefulness of a digital archiving system, it should be integrated with other information management systems that can contain not only information on tenure but also regulatory (e.g., use restrictions), bio-physical and socio-economic characteristics. • Policy and legislative frameworks related forest and land resources should be reformed by addressing the key issues and challenges arising from digitization to take full advantage from it.

DISCLAIMER The views presented in this article are entirely of the authors, and do not reflect the views of the MoEF Support Project, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations the United States Agency for International Cooperation (USAID) or the International Committee of the Red Cross.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The article is prepared under the MoEF Support Project with funding support from the USAID. Dr Yurdi Yasmi, Forest Policy Officer and Ms Louisa Jansen, Land Tenure Officer at FAO are cordially acknowledged for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. Three anonymous reviewers of the article deserve special thanks for their insightful comments and suggestions. Authors are highly grateful to the Ministry of Environment and Forests of Bangladesh (MoEF) and Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) for their support while preparing the article. Also, supports and information received from Mr Shaheduzzaman, Mr Inchun Uddin Talukdar, Mr Motiur Rahman and Mr Abdul Halim – all from the MoEF Support Project – have been highly appreciated. Any remaining errors in the article are entirely of the authors.

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BAUDA, I., SCOTTB. D., PFEFFER, K, SYDENSTRICKER-NETO, J. and DENIS, E. 2014. Digital and spatial knowledge management in urban governance: emerging issues in India, Brazil, South Africa, and Peru. Habitat International 44: 501–509. CASTREN, T. and PILLAI, M. 2011. Forest Governance 2.0 – a primer on ICT and governance. Program on Forests. The World Bank, Washington D.C. CIFOR. 2016. Annual report 2015. Bogor, Indonesia. CLIMATE RESILIENT PARTICIPATORY AFFORESTATION AND REFORESTATION PROJECT (CRPACP). 2017. Forestry master plan and national forest policy. Available at http://crparp-bfd.org/project-activities/forestrymaster-plan/ (last sighted on 29 January 2017). CROYDON, B, GANESAN, V. and LUNDQVIST, M. 2016. Digital by default: a guide to transforming government. McKinsey Centre for Government. DEININGER, K. and GOYAL, A. 2010. Going digital: Credit effects of land registry computerization in India. Policy Research Working Paper 5244, The World Bank, Washington DC. DEININGER, K. and GOYAL, A. 2012. Going digital: Credit effects of land registry computerization in India. Journal of Development Economics 99(2): 236–243. DEININGER, K. and Jin, S. 2006. Tenure security and landrelated investment: evidence from Ethiopia. European Economic Review 50(5): 1245–77. DEININGER, K., SELOD, H. and BURNS, A. 2012. The land governance assessment framework: identifying and monitoring good practice in the land sector. Agriculture and Rural Development. World Bank, Washington DC. E-BANGLADESH. 2010. Digitizing land records to combat corruption in Bangladesh. Web. 15 Nov. 2016. ENEMARK, S. 2010. The evolving role of cadastral systems in support of good land governance. Proceedings of the Digital Cadastral Map FIG Commission 7 Open Symposium held in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, 9 September 2010. FAO. 2012. Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure. Rome, Italy. FAO. 2013. Bangladesh: arable land and land under permanent crops. Rome, Italy. FAO. 2015. Global forest resource assessment 2015. Bangladesh Country Report. FAO. 2016. Forest tenure assessment framework (Draft). Rome, Italy. FEDER, G., CHALAMWONG, Y. ONCHAN, T. and HONGLADAROM, C. 1988. Land policies and farm productivity in Thailand. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. GLOBAL FOREST WATCH. 2016. Bangladesh. Available at: http://www.globalforestwatch.org/country/BGD (last sighted 29 Oct. 2016). GOLDSTEIN, M. and UDRY, C. 2008. The profits of power: land rights and agricultural investment in Ghana. Journal of Political Economy 116(6): 980–1022. HOSSAIN, M. 2015. Improving land administration and management in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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IFTEKHAR, M.S., HOQUE, A.K.F. and ISLAM, M.R. 2003. Root causes of forest encroachment: a critical analysis for Bangladesh. Proceedings of the XII World Forestry Congress, Quebec City, Canada. JACOBY, H.G., LI, G. and ROZELLE, S. 2002. Hazards of expropriation: tenure insecurity and investment in rural China. American Economic Review 92(5): 1420–1447. KARMAKAR, K. and HOQUE, R. 2016. Clash in Gaibandha: another injured santal dies. The Daily Star. Available at http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/clash-gaibandhaanother-injured-santal-dies-1312894 (last sighted on 16 November 2016). KHAN, S. 2014. Land registration system in disarray. The Financial Express. Available at: http://print.thefinancial express-bd.com/2014/04/03/26785/print (last sighted on 3 November 2016). LIN, W. 2013. Digitizing the dragon head, geo-coding the urban landscape: GIS and the transformation of China’s urban governance. Urban Geography 34: 901–922. MINISTRY OF LAND. 2018. Land info. Available at http:// www.minland.gov.bd/ (last accessed on 7 February 2018). NAHRIN, K. and RAHMAN, S. 2009. Land Information System (LIS) for land administration and management in Bangladesh. Journal of Bangladesh Institute of Planners 9: 116–125. POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH AND CLIMATE ANALYTICS. 2013. Turn down the heat: climate extremes, regional impacts and the case for resilience. The World Bank. Washington D.C. USA. PRAKASH, A. and DE, R. 2007 Importance of development context in ICT4D projects: A study of computerization of land records in India. Information Technology & People 20(3): 262–281. RAHMAN, L.M. 2016. Bangladesh national conservation strategy: forest resources. Bangladesh Forest Department and International Union for Nature Conservation. RAHMAN, S.H. and TALUKDAR, S.K. 2016. Benefits and costs of digitizing land records in Bangladesh. The Copenhagen Consensus Centre. ROZELLE, S. and SWINNEN, J.F.M. 2004. Success and failure of reform: insights from the transition of agriculture. Journal of Economic Literature 42(2): 404–56. THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION. 2013. Ministry of Land and European Union Launch new land reform initiative. Available at: http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/delegations/ bangladesh/documents/press_corner/all_news/news/2013/ 20130508_en.pdf (last sighted on 3 November 2016). TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL BANGLADESH (TIB). 2015. Land management and services in Bangladesh: governance challenges and way forward. Dhaka, Bangladesh. UDDIN, A.M.F. and HAQUE, J.T. 2009. Agrarian transition and livelihoods of the rural poor: the agricultural land market. Unnayan – Onneshan, Dhaka, Bangladesh. UNPAN. 2010. Digitalizing land registration in Bangladesh. Available at: http://www.unpan.org/PublicAdministration

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FSC forest management certification in the Americas V.M. BASSOa,b, L.A.G. JACOVINEb, A.M.B. NARDELLIc, R.R. ALVESd, E.V. SILVAa, M.L. SILVAb and B.G. ANDRADEa a

Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. BR 465 - Km 7, UFRRJ, Forest Institute - Department of Forestry, Seropédica - RJ, Brazil Federal University of Viçosa. Avenue Peter Henry Rolfs, s / n. UFV - Department of Forestry, Viçosa - MG, Brazil c Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials. Belo Horizonte - MG, Brazil d Federal University of Pampa. Av. Antônio Trilha, 1847, Centro. UNIPAMPA São Gabriel – RS, Brazil b

Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

SUMMARY The forest sector directly and indirectly serves several industries and economic activities. In addition to this, forests also provide various environmental services at local and global scales. The demand and conservation of these services has been increasing more strongly in recent decades. A mechanism created to highlight “good forest management” and ensuring the sustainability of forests, is forest certification. The American continent has vast forest areas and a strong forest sector, with big consumers and producers, especially Brazil, Canada and the United States. However less than 5% of this area is certified. Thus, this study aimed to review how the different countries of the Americas carried out the process of forest certification by the FSC system and to discuss how external factors would have influenced these processes. As a result, we found that the establishment of certification was not homogenous among the American countries. It has grown faster in countries with large activities in the forest sector, namely Brazil, Canada and the United States. Overall, different factors were instrumental in furthering certification in different countries, for example market requirements in Canada and government requirements in Mexico. In Brazil and in the United States, environmental requirements have been driving the need for adherence to the process. In South America, the countries with the largest exports to the European Union have a greater number of certificates, indicating a possible influence in the market. We also conclude that domestic markets need more support and encouragement from stakeholders so that forest certification can expand. Keywords: forestry market, Forest Stewardship Council, the American continent, environmental requirements, standard

Certification de gestion forestière FSC dans les Amériques V.M. BASSO, L.A.G. JACOVINE, A.M.B. NARDELLI, R.R. ALVES, E.V. SILVA, M.L. SILVA et B.G. ANDRADE Le secteur forestier rend service à plusieurs industries et activités économique, directement et indirectement. De plus, les forêts fournissent également des services environnementaux variés, que ce soit à l’échelle globale ou locale. La demande et la conservation de ces services s’est accrue de manière soulignée dans les récentes décennies. Un mécanisme créé pour mettre en lumière la «bonne» gestion forestière et pour assurer la durabilité des forêts est la certification forestière. Le continent américain possède de vastes zones de forêts, ainsi qu’un secteur forestier solide, comprenant de grands consommateurs et producteurs, le Brésil, le Canada et les Etats-Unis en particulier. Cependant, moins de 5% de cette zone est certifiée. Cette étude a, par conséquent, cherché à examiner comment les différents pays des Amériques conduisent le processus de la certification forestière par le système FSC, et à évaluer à quel point des facteurs extérieurs pourraient avoir influencé les processus. Le résultat s’est révélé être que la certification ne s’effectuait pas de façon homogène dans tous les pays des Amériques. Elle a cru plus rapidement dans les pays témoins de larges activités dans le secteur forestier: le Brésil, le Canada et les Etats-Unis. De différents facteurs étaient généralement actifs pour encourager la certification dans certains pays, comme, par exemple, les nécessités du marché au Canada, et les exigences gouvernementales au Brésil. Dans ce dernier pays, et aux Etats-Unis, les exigences environnementales ont rendu le besoin d’adhérer au processus plus pressant. En Amérique du Sud, les pays témoin des exportations les plus importantes avec l’Union Européenne possèdent un nombre plus élevé de certificats, indiquant une influence possible sur le marché. Nous concluons que les marchés domestiques ont besoin de plus de soutien et d’encouragement de la part des parties prenantes, afin que la certification forestière puisse se répandre davantage.

Certificación de manejo forestal por FSC en las Américas V.M. BASSO, L.A.G. JACOVINE, A.M.B. NARDELLI, R.R. ALVES, E.V. SILVA, M.L. SILVA y B.G. ANDRADE El sector forestal sirve directa o indirectamente a varias industrias y actividades económicas. Además de esto, los bosques también proporcionan diversos servicios ambientales a escala local y global. La demanda y la conservación de estos servicios ha ido en aumento con más fuerza en las últimas décadas. La certificación forestal es un mecanismo creado para resaltar “el buen manejo forestal” y garantizar la sostenibilidad de los bosques. El continente americano tiene vastas zonas de bosques y un sector forestal fuerte, con importantes consumidores y productores, en especial en Brasil, Canadá y Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, menos del 5% de esta superficie está certificada. Por lo tanto, el objetivo de este estudio fue examinar cómo los diferentes países de las Américas han llevado a cabo el proceso de certificación forestal por el sistema FSC

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y discutir como ciertos factores externos han podido influir en estos procesos. Como resultado, se encontró que el establecimiento de la certificación no fue homogéneo en los países de América. Ha aumentado rápidamente en los países con una gran actividad en el sector forestal, como Brasil, Canadá y Estados Unidos. En general, los diferentes factores jugaron un papel decisivo en la promoción de la certificación en los diferentes países, como por ejemplo en los requisitos comerciales en Canadá y los gubernamentales en México. En Brasil y en los Estados Unidos, los requisitos medioambientales han venido motivando la necesidad de su adhesión al proceso. En América del Sur, los países con mayores exportaciones a la Unión Europea cuentan con un mayor número de certificados, lo que indica una posible influencia en el mercado. También se llegó a la conclusión de que los mercados domésticos necesitan más apoyo y aliento por parte de los interesados para la expansión de la certificación forestal.

INTRODUCTION In recent decades, the continuous losses of forest areas have triggered several discussions about the impacts of forestry activities on diverse ecosystems worldwide (Alves et al. 2009, Nardelli and Griffith 2003). These discussions have resulted in numerous criticisms from society and encouraged the forest sector to seek mechanisms capable of demonstrating their commitment to environmental and social practices, in order to differentiate themselves from illegal and predatory activities. In this sense, forest management certification emerges as an alternative to address such issues and to ensure this environmental commitment (Basso et al. 2012, Busch and Ribeiro 2013). Forest certification is a non-governmental and voluntary recognition mechanism in which certain management characteristics practiced by a forest operation are guaranteed (Nardelli and Griffith 2003, Rametsteiner and Simula 2003). Like certification in other sectors, it follows pre-established standards and aims to comply with environmental, social and economic principles and criteria. One of the major internationally recognized certification systems is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), created in 1993 in Toronto (Canada), with the participation of entities from 26 countries worldwide, and headquartered in Germany since 2003 (Auld et al. 2008, Imaflora 2005). From this initiative, other certification programs were created, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) in the United States and Canada in 1995, the Finnish Forest Certification System in 1999, and the Pan-European Forest Certification program (PEFC) in 1999, which serves as an umbrella program linking individual European country programs (Toppinen et al. 2014). The FSC standard is applicable to any nation in the world and consists of principles that aim to ensure compliance with the main environmental, social and economic demands on forest management (FSC 2015). In recent years, around the world, the growth in the number of certificates issued to Forest Management Units (FMU) through the FSC system has been remarkable. In 2008, the total certified area was approximately 93 million hectares, and in 2013, there were more than 186 million certified hectares (Cubbage et al. 2008, FSC 2013). However, in the last five years this growth has decreased. In December 2017, the FSC registered 195 million certified hectares (FSC 2017). 1 2

United States Department of Agriculture Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Several factors, internal or external, may stimulate organizations to voluntarily adopt socio-environmental criteria for production, such as forest certification. Among the internal factors, we can highlight: improvement of the socioenvironmental image; reducing the risk of environmental accidents; adding value to the final product; access to environmentally-conscious consumer markets; lower production costs through more efficient techniques; and even improvement of organizational management (Jacovine et al. 2006, Overdevest and Rickenbach 2006, Thompson et al. 2010, Voivodic and Beduschi Filho 2011, Basso et al. 2012, Carlsen et al. 2012, Nukpeza et al. 2014). External factors include all those outside a company that influence its practices, such as reducing the risk for investors in forestry enterprises, market regulations, public pressure and customer preferences (Nardelli and Griffith, 2003, Araujo et al. 2009, Ice et al. 2010). In addition, national government policies, such as the granting of tax exemptions or other preferential treatment to certified timber producers, could also enhance the potential from certification (Ebeling and Yasué 2009). The marketing restrictions have the purpose of obtaining information enabling the traceability of forest products. An example is the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR, Regulation 995/2010), which has been in effect since 2013. In the United States, the Lacey Act (1900) prohibits the illegal trade of any species of wildlife. In 2008, an amendment was included to expand the scope of protection to ‘plants and plant products’ in order to repress the illegal extraction of timber arising from other countries (USDA1 2017). In Canada, there is a commitment from the forest industry to the certification of its suppliers. In 2002, the Canadian Forest Products Association (FPAC) (2014) required all its suppliers to be certified by one of the forest certification systems operating in the country. Forest certification is not mandatory for entry into these markets, but there are several requirements, particularly those related to legal guarantees, which can be more easily secured by certification. There are about 4 billion hectares of forest areas, occupying around 31% of the world territory, divided into several ecosystems (Keenan et al. 2015). Of the world total, 41.5% is located in the Americas (FAO2 2016). The American continent has a large part of its territory allocated to forest production and countries with a long tradition in forest management as consumers and exporters of forest products (FAO 2014).

FSC forest management certification in the Americas

In the FSC system, around 43% of its total certified area is in the Americas, demonstrating great interest of American forest producers in obtaining the certification (FSC 2017). However, this growth has not been homogenous in all countries, with some more prominent than others. Thus, it is necessary to investigate what are the factors that positively or negatively affect the growth of certification in these countries. In this sense, this study aimed to review how the different countries of the Americas carried out the process of forest certification by the FSC system and to discuss how external factors would have influenced these processes.

METHODOLOGY This study was carried out through documentary research. According to Gil (2011), “research of this type has the description of characteristics of a specific population or phenomenon, or establishing relationships between variables as its main objective”. The research was developed in three phases. In the first phase, the authors made an overwhelmingly survey on the development of forest certification in American countries that had forest management certifications by the FSC system in December 2013. The research also focused on finding and ascertaining external factors that could influence organizations to seek the certification. The countries surveyed were: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. The FSC was chosen because it is the certification scheme that covers the largest number of countries in the Americas. The survey focused entirely on data available on the internet. The main databases of scientific articles used were Science Direct, CAPES / MEC Journal Portal and Google Scholar. The main keywords used in the searches were: certification; forest certification, sustainability, forest management, environment, forestry sector, timber sector and the names of the countries. Key words were searched for in Portuguese, English and Spanish. The research also covered government reports from each country investigated, statistical reports from well-known organizations and foundations (e.g. FAO), reports and disclosures from non-governmental organizations and reports from FSC certified organizations. We also obtained data of total forest areas (natural and planted) in each country from the Global Forest Resources Assessments (FRA) made available in 2010, by the FAO (2010). Data of forest certifications (number and area) were obtained from the monthly report (until December 2013) provided by the FSC (2013) on its official website. Considering the broad scope of this study, the intention was neither to exhaust the sources of information available, nor to evaluate exhaustively the data found. Instead, the objective was to select information according to their relevance, and group them together in order to create a comparative evaluation among the countries studied and to develop a constructive discussion on the subject.

33

In the second phase, from the survey made, four groups of external factors were highlighted: government institutions; society’s pressure; international market demand and domestic market demand. In the government institutions group, information was gathered containing influences on forest certification whose origin came from government agencies, through regulatory restrictions, technical assistance, corporate purchases and even participation in one of the FSC technical chambers. In the society’s pressure group, information was gathered containing the influences on forest certification whose point of origin came from Environmental and Social Non-governmental Organizations (national and international), through dissemination of information, or even providing technical assistance to implement the requirements for FSC certification. In this group, public opinion on the forestry sector and certification in each country was also taken into account. In the international market demand group information was gathered mainly on corporate actions or articulations triggered by the international market demanding environmental and social guarantees on imported products. Also included in this group were reports of companies pointing to the search for certification as a way of meeting the requirements of international markets. Following this same reasoning, all information pointing to the influence of the domestic market on the search for certification in a given country were gathered in the group domestic market demand. On the basis of the data gathered and the general perception obtained in the research, the most influential external factors in the process of forest certification in each country were selected in the third and last phase. Due to the large amount of data and the subjectivity in qualitatively evaluating all the information collected, it was not possible to satisfactorily estimate the intensity of each factor. Therefore, we sought to identify, for each country, which external factors presented greater prominence through a joint and comparative analysis between all the information obtained. In order to allow a deeper discussion of the market factors, the third phase also consisted of the survey and analysis of the export data of the forest production of each country analyzed. This analysis focused on export percentages for Canada, the United States and the European Union, as these markets present restrictions on the origin of forest products. For this, we used data from the FAO statistics site, based on values from the year 2012 (FAO 2015).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Overview of FSC certification in the Americas By 2013 there were 81 countries with FMUs certified by FSC. Of these, 20 were located in the Americas. Throughout the world, these 20 countries together held 47.5% of the total certified forest management area (about 89 million hectares) and 40% of the number of certified organizations (461 management certificates) (Table 1). According to Cubbage et al. (2008), the area certified by the FSC in the Americas was 39,064,143 hectares in January

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V.M. Basso et al.

TABLE 1 Number of certificates issued by the FSC system, and the corresponding area in countries of the Americas in December 2013 Country

Total certified area (ha)

Total certified area (%)

Number of certificates

Number of certificates (%)

Canada

59 488 319

67.11

74

16.05

United States

14 610 754

16.48

123

26.68

Brasil

7 446 760

8.40

91

19.74

Chile

2 222 668

2.51

21

4.56

Bolivia

986 992

1.11

9

1.95

Uruguay

838 108

0.95

25

5.42

Mexico

768 711

0.87

35

7.59

Peru

734 894

0.83

14

3.04

Guatemala

433 596

0.49

11

2.39

Argentina

256 735

0.29

10

2.17

Belize

166 857

0.19

2

0.43

Venezuela

139 588

0.16

1

0.22

Colombia

126 130

0.14

6

1.30

Suriname

113 769

0.13

2

0.43

Honduras

107 343

0.12

3

0.65

Panama

58 069

0.07

8

1.74

Ecuador

52 684

0.06

5

1.08

Costa Rica

41 657

0.05

13

2.82

Nicaragua

28 209

0.03

6

1.30

Paraguay

18 486

0.02

2

0.43

Total

88 640 329.00

100

461

100

Source: FSC (2013).

2008. Based on Table 1, it can be seen that in five years the certified area of the countries of the American continent grew by more than 126%. During this period, the countries with the highest growth rates were Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, the United States and especially Canada, which quadrupled its area certified by the FSC system. The global growth of forest certification is occurring in an irregular manner when analyzed by income category and climate domains. This increase was higher in countries with temperate and boreal climate domains, representing about 90% of the certified area in the world (MacDicken et al. 2015). We also found this scenario in this study. In Brazil, despite being a tropical country, the growth of the certificates was registered mainly in the areas of forest plantations of species originating in temperate climate. Among the countries of the Americas, the largest certified area in 2013 belonged to Canada, and the largest number of certificates issued to the United States (Table 1); Brazil was 2nd in the number of certificates and placed 3rd in total area certified. Despite the expansion of forest certification in the Americas, the certified area in the continent is still only 5.9% of the entire forested area (Table 2).

Main external influences in FSC certification in American countries After more than two decades of dissemination of the concept of “good forest management”, certification has become a positive differential for those who go through the process (Basso et al. 2012). In the countries studied, the incentives for certification occurred in a variety of ways. In our research we investigate the influence of four external factors: government institutions; society’s pressure; international market demand and domestic market demand. The intensity of the influence of each of the four factors also varied among the countries studied. In some countries we found the relevance of one or more factors. In others, we found little or no relevance to any of these four factors. Our survey was not detailed enough to allow ordering the intensity of these influences by any country. But it was enough to allow us to select which countries showed the greatest influence on each of the factors. For each of the four factors investigated, we indicate the countries that presented the highest highlights, as shown in Table 3. Not enough information was found about Belize, Panama and Venezuela to allow us to choose prominent factors among these countries.


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TABLE 2 Total forest area (native and plantation) of the countries of the Americas in 2010 compared to the total area certified by the FSC system in December 2013 Total forest area* (ha)

Certified area (ha)

%

Canada

310 134 000

59 488 319

19.2

United States

304 022 000

14 610 754

4.8

Brasil

493 500 000

7 446 760

1.5

Chile

16 231 000

2 222 668

13.7

Bolivia

57 196 000

986 992

1.7

Uruguay

1 744 000

838 108

48.1

Mexico

64 802 000

768 711

1.2

Peru

67 992 000

734 894

1.1

Guatemala

3 657 000

433 596

11.9

Argentina

29 400 000

256 735

0.9

Country

Belize

1 393 000

166 857

12.0

Venezuela

46 275 000

139 588

0.3

Colombia

60 499 000

126 130

0.2

Suriname

14 758 000

113 769

0.8

Honduras

5 192 000

107 343

2.1

Panama

3 251 000

58 069

1.8

Ecuador

9 865 000

52 684

0.5

Costa Rica

2 605 000

41 657

1.6

Nicaragua

3 114 000

28 209

0.9

Paraguay

17 582 000

18 486

0.1

1 513 212 000

88 640 329

5.9

Total * Native areas and forest plantations. Source: FAO (2010); FSC (2013).

TABLE 3 The prominence of the four main influencing factors in the certification process employed in the study, by country Government institutions

Society’s pressures

International market demand

Domestic market demand

Bolivia Canada Colombia Costa Rica Guatemala Honduras Mexico

Argentina Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Costa Rica Colombia United States Paraguay Peru Uruguay

Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador United States Guatemala Honduras Mexico Paraguay Peru Uruguay

Canada United States

Only the society’s pressure factor was highlighted simultaneously in the three countries with the largest number of certificates (Brazil, Canada and United States). Rametsteiner and Simula (2003) highlighted that forest certification was pushed by environmental groups and quickly evolved as a potential instrument to promote sustainable forest

management. The existence of large industrial complexes and large-scale forest production in these countries has resulted in several criticisms from environmental NGOs. In Canada, 94% of forests are publicly owned (Natural Resources Canada 2018) and most of the production is carried out through concession contracts to private enterprises

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(Teitelbaum and Wyat 2013). According to Hackett (2013), a series of events in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s, such as declining employment in the forest sector, indigenous peoples’ claim to their forest usufruct rights, and growing social discussion on environmental sustainability, gave rise to concerns about forest management in the country. In 1992, Canada acted on these responsibilities when the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers and Canada’s forest sector endorsed national adoption of sustainable forest management principles (Natural Resources Canada 2018). According to Tikina et al. (2012), Canada has been involved in forest certification since the beginning of the 1990s, becoming the world leader in certified forests, with three schemes in place: Canadian Standards Association (CSA), Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). From this, some provinces of Canada have adopted forest certification as a rule for exploitation in public areas (Tikina et al. 2012, Hackett 2013). Another incentive to certification in the country was the commitment of the forest industry to the certification of its suppliers. In 2002, the Canadian Forest Products Association (FPAC) - whose members manage most of the commercial forests in Canada - became the first forest trade association in the world to require its members to have their forest management operations certified in one of the Systems available in the country (FPAC 2014). Four years later, all members achieved certification and it is now the case that new FPAC members and operations acquired by member companies should meet the certification commitment within five years as a requirement of membership (FPAC 2011). In the United States, according to Cashore et al. (2003) the idea of the certification did not have great adhesion among the members of the forestry industry in the beginning. The support of large companies like the Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Kaufman and Board Home Corp may have driven some producers to seek certification (Cashore et al. 2003). Studies have shown that only from the 2000s has the process of forest certification increased in the United States. For Cashore et al. (2005) organizations are more likely to participate in a forest certification if they realize that it can lead to an environmental improvement in their practices, or if they see certification as necessary to reduce some external pressure (from NGOs or the general public). Although it does not address all of the demands, forest certification has proven to be a tool that can demonstrate that a given organization is striving to minimize its impacts by complying with good forest management practices (Cashore et al. 2003). According to Hansen et al. (2006), for North American producers, forest certification brought guarantees and greater credibility about the socio-environmental issues, mainly in relation to the transparency of the process by keeping the information in the public domain. Overdevest and Rickenbach (2006) have conducted a study on the benefits that forest certification brought to forest producers in the U.S. and what led them to certify their forests. In their study, they investigated three advantages: “a market-based mechanism to internalize environmental

externalities through prices; an assurance or signal of hardto-observe or predictable organizational characteristics and practices; and a learning and technology transfer mechanism”. The results showed that at first the producers saw the certification as a market opportunity, but did not obtain big economic gains from the ‘green stamp’. But, over time, certification became a guarantee, that is, a response to environmental pressures, demonstrating that forestry activities met the most stringent standards. According to reports from the National Environmental Agency of the United States, certification has rapidly evolved over the past two decades. The Agency reports that although there are many regulations governing forest management, particularly in the U.S, certification provides a private incentive to motivate the owner’s commitment to sustainable forest management, because much of the forest production comes from individual private areas (EPA 2014). As reported by Espinoza et al. (2012), in the United States, a positive but still incipient influence on the purchase of certified forest products was the adoption of environmental standards in the construction industry, the so-called ‘green buildings’. The authors emphasize that despite a considerable increase in forest certification participation in the country, the domestic American market still has no significant demand for certified forest products. In this way, we understand that the adherence to forest certification and green buildings is voluntary and driven by market demand, which means that consumer awareness is fundamental. In Brazil, despite the large area of native forests in the country, the highest percentage of the area certified by the FSC system refers to forest plantations. Brazil is estimated to have 7.8 million hectares (IBA 2016) of plantations (1.5% of the country’s total forests), of which around 60% were already certified by the FSC in 2013. Holders of forest plantation certificates in the country, in general, are enterprises whose forest production is integrated with industry, and who practice large-scale management of introduced species, mainly species of the genus Eucalyptus and Pinus. Over the last three decades, these extensive monocultured areas of forest species have provoked various criticisms from society and environmental NGOs, creating even the jargon “Green Desert” (Viani et al. 2010, Lima 2015). To minimize this negative image, many forestry companies have been seeking forest certification as a way of demonstrating that the organization has environmental and social concerns and aims to minimize the negative impacts of its operations on the environment and the community where they operate (May 2006, Buch 2008). Known worldwide, the Amazon forest represents the largest tropical forest area in the world (FAO 2010), and occupies, beyond the Brazilian territory, areas in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. As verified in the various documents analyzed, in the last two decades, all these countries that compose the Amazon Forest have been updating their forest policies to create mechanisms that help in the fight against deforestation. However, according to numbers in the latest FAO reports (2010 and 2015) the application and efficiency of these mechanisms have not been satisfactory, and illegal deforestation rates remain alarming.


Most of the wood extracted from the Amazon is consumed in the countries of origin, and enters the market without paying taxes, causing environmental degradation and under precarious working conditions (Adeodato et al. 2011, Veríssimo and Pereira 2014). Thus, the enterprises and communities that practice good management in the Amazon forest seek, through exports, markets that value their products (Higuchi et al. 2010, Imperador and Wadt 2014). To export, it is necessary to guarantee legality, and obtaining forest certification brings this guarantee (Tripoli and Prates 2015). In this case there is a strong influence of the international market demand group. In Peru, the forest certification process was introduced with the support of the WWF3- Peru e Pro Naturaleza NGOs that targeted timber as well as Amazon or Brazil nuts (Ebeling and Yasue 2009). Beginning in 1997 there were several discussions with associations and private companies to develop national FSC standards. The ‘Standard Forest Management Certification in Peru’ (FSC-STD-PER-06-2001) was approved in 2001, and the ‘Standard for Forest Management for to Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) production in Peru’ (FSC-STD-PER-01-2002 SLIMF), in 2002 (Savilaakso et al. 2016). Quaedvlieg et al., 2014 argued that the most important reason to start certification of Amazon nuts was to improve the quality of the product due to the lack of national standards, given the high quality requirements of the European Union. In Ecuador, we verified five forest certificates in 2013, and according to Ebeling and Yasue (2009) two of these certified organizations do not produce timber for international markets, but were established as part of a carbon sequestration project of a Dutch organization. A third certificate refers to a small plantation belonging to an agro-industrial enterprise in which FSC certification complements the company’s strategy of demonstrating good social and environmental practices to its international clients. This company is one of the largest banana producers in Ecuador (Ebeling and Yasue 2009). There have been several attempts by NGOs and government forestry agency in Ecuador to implement certified forest management in community projects, but these have mostly been unsuccessful (Ebeling and Yasue 2009). In Bolivia most of the timber produced in FSC certified operations is export-oriented, and in 2004, 60% of the timber exported was certified (Ebeling and Yasue 2009). The certificates verified in our study belonged to large industrial logging enterprises, which have access to the international market. In addition, according to Ebeling and Yasue (2009) the reform of forestry policies with the more rigorous application favored certification. Segura (2004) stated that several legal criteria for sustainable forest management in Bolivia were very similar to FSC guidelines. This was confirmed in the study by Ebeling and Yasue (2009), in which several respondents stated that certification requirements have become only an additional small step beyond legal timber production. One of the reasons for the creation of forest certification systems was to differentiate forest management from illegal

3

World Wide Fund for Nature (ONG)

37

logging activities, mainly in tropical forests. However, from the data presented we find that this point has not yet been reached in America. There was a decrease in illegal activities in certified management areas verified in the management reports. However, the natural forest area certified in the Amazon is still small. According to the analysis of the FSC certified management unit reports, we verified that the certificates from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have similarities with the forest plantation areas of Brazil. The FMUs are large areas of plantations and natural forest, with species directed to the production of pulp and paper. According to Nardelli and Griffith (2003), in these countries the main motivation of the companies to adhere to the standards of certification has been the opportunities of businesses or the maintenance of markets. In general, in these countries, the international market demand and the society’s pressure factors exerted a greater influence for adherence to certification. In Chile, pine and eucalypt plantations of large industries have become the main cause of deforestation of their natural areas (Clapp 2001). According to Heilmayr and Lambin (2016), the delay in updating the Chilean forestry law and NGO movements with international buyers to preserve natural areas led large forest-based industries to seek certification. There are two certification systems in Chile: FSC and CERTFLOR (national). The voluntary adoption of certification contributed to the reduction of deforestation in the country, with FSC collaboration being more effective (Heilmayr and Lambin 2016). Uruguay currently has about 1.2 million hectares of forest plantations according to the Society of Forest Producers (SPF 2018), of which, in 2013, more than 70% were already certified by the FSC system (Table 1). According to Mermot and Hoff (2010), most Uruguayan plantations belong to multinational groups and are certified under the requirements of their shareholders and international buyers. Another important factor is that, as in Brazil, in Uruguay there are movements against monoculture plantations of eucalyptus and pine trees (Quero and Mosquera, 2000). This has been confirmed in several publications of the NGO World Rainforest Movement (WRM). In Argentina, the FSC forest certification process began in the early 2000s, and the national environmental NGO Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina (FVSA), WWF’s partner in the country, acted as the coordinator for the first discussions of establishing a national standard the FSC in country (Burns et al. 2016). However, these efforts were not effective and a national standard has not yet been established. Burns et al. (2016) argued in their work that various influences were contrary to the establishment of FSC in the country, such as the producers themselves and government agencies. In Argentina, forests are mainly owned privately: 99.7% of plantation forests and 93.5% of natural forests are privately owned (Burns and Giessen 2014). The private sector has a strong

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influence on government sectors (Burns et al. 2016). Faggi et al. (2014) evaluated the motivations for implementing voluntary environmental actions in Argentine forest companies. These authors verified that the main motivations for adherence to environmental certifications, including the FSC, were the search for compliance with national legislation and international regulations, market access or the enrichment of the company image (decreasing society pressure) and moral values of decision makers. In Honduras, the support of the governments of Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico coupled with the buyers’ demand was essential for adherence to forest certificates (Markopoulos, 1999). In the same study, it was reported that in 1980 a government project was created in partnership with Canada to manage and protect a forest reserve with the intention of involving indigenous communities and tribes in the region, involving forestry, agriculture and social development, which became known as the Broadleaf Project. In the 1990s, a large furniture company contacted the project team for product acquisition, but required proof of sustainable management of the area (Markopoulos, 1999). In compliance with this requirement, the first group of forest producers of the Broadleaf Project obtained FSC certification in 1996. In 2012, another important step in this sequence of efforts was Honduras’ decision to negotiate a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) (Forest Trends 2013). Markopoulos (1999) concludes that many of the groups did not have the capital, skills and other resources needed to plan and install forest operations alone, which refers to the great influence of these agents in acquiring certification in these areas. According to a report by Forest Trends (2013), these partnerships were fundamental to the communities, but over the years many of them have ended, and yet the advancement of the groups has been remarkable. Although there were only three certificates in 2013, they included dozens of community groups and indigenous villages in and around this forest reserve (FSC 2013, Forest Trends 2013). Mexico’s forests cover about 65 million hectares (Table 2), of which the majority are governed by more than 2,000 communal forest management units, the legacy of the agrarian reform (Blackman et al. 2015). Historically, deforestation and forest degradation have been severe in Mexico (Blackman et al. 2015). Between 1990 and 2000, clearing of all types of forests caused the seventh-highest net annual forest loss of any country in the world (FAO 2010). In Mexico, the forestry sector does not have a great tradition. It began to be encouraged by the Government in the last two decades owing to the high levels of emigration to cities, high levels of degradation and the production deficit in the sector (Fonseca 2006). The encouragement of silvicultural production provided technical and financial support to the producers concerned. This work has been carried out in collaboration with the NGO WWF, in an effort to strengthen community forest management and preserve biodiversity in native areas through adherence to forest certification (Fonseca 2006). According to Blackman et al. (2015), two factors had a great influence on the FSC certification in Mexico: campaign by regulatory agencies, specifically the Environment Ministry and, within

that ministry, the Forest Agency (CONAFOR) and market pressure. The country has 29 community titles in 2013, which encompass thousands of producers. Certification in Mexico is increasing and there have been no losses in the numbers the certificates recent years. The participation of the government institutions can be a strong influencing factor when policies or programs of official government bodies are created for this purpose. In some cases these governmental actions have acted effectively in the expansion of the certification process. Take for example, in some provinces of Canada, with the need for certification for the maintenance of forest exploitation contracts or through technical support to producers, such as in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica. The smallest influence on forest certification in the American countries was its own domestic market. In general, most of the domestic market of the American countries, except for Canada, still does not recognize the differences between certified and non-certified products. For consumers, the most relevant factor in the purchase is still the price. Thus, products with the ‘green stamp’ do not tend to positively influence consumers, especially if the price is higher. For Busch (2008), the domestic market for sustainable products, such as certified wood, is in an incipient stage. The consumer has been made aware through the dissemination of information in the media or in programs of non-governmental organizations. However, the great majority of society has not yet acquired sensitivity or willingness to pay for environmental or social benefits. Alves et al. (2009) conducted a survey with final consumers of wood products in Brazil, and the result was that most of the interviewees did not have knowledge about forest certification. Initially, he found that 57% of the respondents had never heard of it, and only 12% of the people knew about them by presenting the forest certification stamps (FSC and CERFLOR). This research indicated that the Brazilian domestic market does not yet differentiate forest products through certifications. The lack of knowledge about forest certification of domestic consumers is believed to have contributed to the low number of country certificates. In general, based on this survey, our perception was that the demand for certified products in domestic markets is still small. We believe that the requirements of external markets have a greater influence on the interest in current forest certificates. Influence of the external market on certification As we have seen, the most reported influencing factor among the documents analyzed was international market demand. That is, forestry organizations seek certification as a means of guaranteeing the fulfillment of social and environmental requirements demanded internationally. Table 4 shows the percentages of exports of forest products destined for EU, United States and Canada. These markets were chosen because they presented requirements as to the origin of forestbased products. We therefore investigated for each country the relationship between export numbers and FSC certificate numbers. We was also sought to draw a parallel between the


39

TABLE 4 Total export value of forestry products in 2012, by country, for the three forest markets most sensitive to certification Percentage exported to (%)

Total exports value (US$ 1000)

UE

EUA

Canadá

Percentage total (%)

United States

26 195 911

12.60

0.00

13.90

26.50

Canada

21 725 349

3.20

58.10

0.00

61.30

Country

Brazil

7 511 921

40.00

15.80

0.90

56.70

Chile

4 396 407

23.00

7.30

1.00

31.30

Uruguay

998 270

27.20

1.40

0.10

28.70

Argentina

465 630

5.30

2.00

4.00

11.30

Mexico

455 598

0.50

50.20

2.80

53.50

Ecuador

269 844

14.50

21.20

0.00

35.70

Colombia

220 928

3.00

1.40

0.20

4.60

Peru

138 882

3.50

8.00

0.00

11.50

Nicaragua

118 153

0.10

0.60

0.00

0.70

Paraguay

78 252

34.10

5.40

0.00

39.50

Guatemala

69 558

0.90

9.20

0.00

10.10

Costa Rica

69 153

2.00

1.20

0.10

3.30

Panamá

60 957

0.60

0.00

0.00

0.60

Honduras

60 251

3.90

93.80

0.40

98.10

Venezuela

31 811

0.20

0.00

0.00

0.20

Bolivia

29 471

28.50

0.00

0.70

29.20

Suriname

18 351

57.00

0.00

0.00

57

Belize

10 570

13.60

18.80

0.00

32.40

Source: FAO Statistics (2015) – base year 2012.

export numbers and the major influences of the international market demand factor, as presented in Table 3. In comparison to other countries, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay were less influenced by the issue of government institutions. However, the share of exports of forestry products from these three countries to the EU was 40%, 23% and 27%, respectively, as shown in Table 4. This may indicate that the international market demand factor was essential to boost certification in these countries. It is perhaps not surprising that in these three countries, most of the organizations that have certified forest areas are involved in the international market. Brazil is one of the countries with the highest percentage of forestry products exports to the EU. Of the total value exported in 2012, 60% refers to the paper and pulp sector (FAO 2015). In Brazil, about 45% of FSC certified FMUs provide wood for industries in this sector. Nevertheless, when looking at the EU’s import share of forest products, only 9% came from the American continent in 2012: 3.6% from the United States, 3.5% from Brazil and 0.8% from Canada. Most of the trade in forest products is carried out internally on the European continent. However, the other two markets, the United States and Canada, do not seem to have as much influence on the FSC certifications of other countries, when only export data were analyzed (Table 4). All countries had low percentages of

exports to Canada, with the exception of the United States. As they are neighboring countries and large producers and consumers of products of forest origin, there is a plausible existence of a strong market between them. Regarding exports of forest products to the United States, it calls attention to exports from Mexico (58%). As already reported, Mexico did not have much tradition in the forestry sector but has been gaining market gradually and the numbers of certificates are increasing. So it is possible that the influence of the buyers of the United States is contributing to the development of certification in Mexico, despite the obstacles encountered by the country. This same reasoning can be applied to Honduras, whose export percentage to the United States was even higher (93.8%). We found that in countries with the lowest FSC certification, the total value of their exports of forest products was small compared to Brazil, the United States and Canada. Considering these numbers, it is possible that most of the forest production in these countries is being traded in their domestic market. In this scenario, since there are few requirements or incentives from national governments, end consumer or internal market, certification does not become attractive to forestry companies because of the cost / benefit analysis. That is, if there is no requirement, demand or price increase for the certified forest product, the discouragement in the search for forest certification tends to happen.

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On the basis of the analysis carried out, it is understood that the increase of the number of certified forests in the American continent can be explained by: -

-

Government incentives: regulations (restrictions); technical support and dissemination of information on sustainable management in the internal market. Requirements of forest processing industries. Creation of demand for certified forest products in the domestic markets of countries: dissemination of information on forest certification for society in joint programs with the certification system (FSC) and stakeholders in the forest production, eg: NGOs, governments, industries, universities, local our traditional communities and indigenous peoples. In order for consumers to choose the certified product, it is important that they know what requirements are required in the process and what differs from those that are not certified.

In addition to these factors, another two issues that may hinder or even discourage certification of forest management are that of resources, and deadlines for adapting to the socioenvironmental requirements of the FSC standard. It is clear that the difficulty of adapting to the standard depends on the degree of structuring of forest management operations required to meet the required environmental and social standards. The methodological simplicity used in this work was necessary to allow a joint analysis of all twenty countries studied. A more detailed and in-depth survey, based on interview data as done by Faggi et al. (2014), based on other certification systems and based on both external and internal factors, was outside the scope of this particular study. As our evaluation was based on the analysis in the documents available for public consultation, it is possible that the lack of research or documentary reports, or even the lack of disclosure of this information, may have interfered in the way each factor was perceived during the survey. The methodology is also limited by the search practices and tools that have been employed that may not be sufficient to allow the detection of all relevant information.

The United States holds the largest number of certificates in the Americas, followed by Brazil and Canada. Several factors together contributed to the great adoption of certification in this country. Although the factor government institutions did not appear to be of major influence when viewed on a national scale, we found that in states with more restrictive regulations on management practices the numbers of forest certificates were higher. Despite the increase of certified areas in the last decade, the percentage of certified forest cover in the Americas is still low, accounting for less than 5% of total forest area. For the process to expand, support and interference from other influencing factors is essential. One of the reasons for the creation of forest certification was to differentiate wood from managed forests from wood derived from illegal logging activities, especially in tropical forests. However, this has not been achieved. Most of the tropical forests in the Americas are still not certified and illegal activities are still fueling the internal market in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. In most countries, the internal market does not require forest certification and often the consumer does not even know what that means or what forest certification contributes to the environmental improvement of forest management. In order for the process to be fully leveraged, it is necessary that the domestic markets of the countries require or prefer certified products, thus generating increased demand, and thereby attracting wood producers. It is possible to achieve this by marketing campaigns promoted by the main stakeholders involved in the process, such as governments and industries and those responsible for the certification systems.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the Federal University of Viçosa, where this work was developed, as part of the doctoral thesis. In addition, the Higher Education Personnel Improvement Coordination (Capes) and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) is thanked for financial support.

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JACOVINE, L.A.G., ALVES, R.R., VALVERDE, S.R., SILVA, M.L. DA, NARDELLI, A.M.B. and SOUZA, A.P. de. 2006. Processo de implementação da certificação florestal nas empresas moveleiras nacionais. Revista Árvore 30(6): 367–378. KEENAN, R.J., REAMS, G.A., ACHARD, F., FREITAS, JOBERTO, V. DE, GRAINGER, A. and LINDQUIST, E. 2015. Dynamics of global forest area: Results from the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015. Forest Ecology and Management 352: 9–20. LA SOCIEDAD DE PRODUCTORES FORESTALES (SPF). 2018. Plantaciones. Available in . (Asseced 06.02. 2018) LIMA, W. DE P. 2015. A silvicultura e a água: ciência, dogmas, desafios. Atual. Atalanta: Apremavi. Cadernos do Diálogo, v. 1. 52 p. MACDICKEN, K.G., SOLA, P., HALL, J.E., SABOGAL, C., TADOUM, M., de and WASSEIGE, C. 2015. Global progress toward sustainable forest management. Forest Ecology and Management 352: 47–56. MARKOPOULOS, M. 1999. The impacts of certification on campesino forestry groups in northern Honduras. Unpublished report. Oxford: Oxford Forestry Institute. MAY, P. 2006. Forest certification yin Brazil. Confronting Sustainability: Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning Countries. Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, CT, 337–362. MERMOT, C. E HOFF, E.V. 2010. Informe analítico preparado por Indufor para el Foro de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Bosques: Estudio de caso de país: Uruguay. Estrategias para el Financiamiento del Manejo Forestal Sostenible (SFM). INDUFOR. NARDELLI, A.M.B. and GRIFFITH, J.J. 2003. Mapeamento conceitual da visão de sustentabilidade de diferentes atores do setor florestal brasileiro. Revista Árvore 27(2): 241–256. NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA. 2018. Available in: . (Accessed 01.30.2018). NUKPEZAH, D., ALEMAGI, D., DUGUMA, L., MINANG, P., MBOSSO, C. and TCHOUNDJEU, Z. 2014. An examination of forest certification status among logging companies in Cameroon. International Scholarly Research Notices, 8p. OVERDEVEST, C. and RICKENBACH, M.G. 2006. Forest certification and institutional governance: anempirical study of Forest Stewardship Council certificate holders in the United States. Forest Policy and Economics 9(1): 93–102. QUERO, M.L., and MOSQUERA, G.D. 2000. Establecimiento de un modelo de certificación ecológica de bosques como estrategia de comercialización: el caso Uruguay. Dirección y Organización, 23p. QUAEDVLIEG, J., ROCA, M.G. and ROS-TONEN, M.A. 2014. Is Amazon nut certification a solution for increased smallholder empowerment in Peruvian Amazonia?. Journal of Rural Studies 33: 41–55.

RAMETSTEINER, E. and SIMULA, M. 2003. Forest certification—an instrument to promote sustainable forest management?. Journal of Environmental Management 67(1): 87–98. SAVILAAKSO, S., CERUTTI, P.O. and MONTOYA ZUMAETA, J.G. 2016. Conserving biodiversity and improving human livelihoods through interaction between public regulation and forest management certification. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland, 74–90. SEGURA, G. 2004. Forest Certification and Governments. The Real and Potential Influence on Regulatory Frameworks and Forest Policy. Forest Trends, Washington, DC. SMITH, P., GREGORY, P.J., VAN VUUREN, D., OBERSTEINER, M., HAVLÍK, P., ROUNSEVELL, M. and WOODS, J. 2010. Competition for land. Philos. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365: 2941–2957. TEITELBAUM, S. and WYATT, S. 2013. Is forest certification delivering on First Nation issues? The effectiveness of the FSC standard in advancing First Nations’ rights in the boreal forests of Ontario and Quebec, Canada. Forest Policy and Economics 27: 23–33. THOMPSON, D.W., ANDERSON, R.C., HANSEN, E.N., and KAHLE, L.R. 2010. Green segmentation and environmental certification: insights from forest products. Business Strategy and the Environment 19(5): 319–334. TIKINA, A.V., KOZAK, R.A., INNES, J.L., DUINKER, P.N. and LARSON, B.C. 2012. Forest certification in Canada: An exploratory study of perceptions of provincial and territorial government employees. The Forestry Chronicle 88(1): 40–48. TOPPINEN, A., CUBBAGE, F. and MOORE, S. 2014. Economics of forest certification and corporate social responsibility. Handbook of Forest Resource Economics 444–458. TRIPOLI, A.C.K., and PRATES, R.C. 2015. Certificação ambiental e internacionalização: uma análise do setor madeireiro brasileiro. Desenvolvimento em Questão 13(31): 322–355. UNIÃO EUROPEIA. 2010. REGULAMENTO (UE) Nº 995/2010 do Parlamento Europeu e do Conselho de 20 de Outubro de 2010. Jornal Oficial da União Europeia L 295: 23–32. (PT – Português). USDA. United States Department of Agriculture. Available in . (accessed 01 out. 2017). VERÍSSIMO, A. and PEREIRA, D. 2014. Produção na Amazônia Florestal: características, desafios e oportunidades. Parcerias Estratégicas 19(38): 13–44. VIANI, R.A.G., DURIGAN, G. and MELO, A.C.G. de. 2010. A regeneração natural sob plantações florestais: desertos verdes ou redutos de biodiversidade?. Ciência Florestal 20(3): 533–552. VOIVODIC, M.D.A. and BEDUSCHI FILHO, L.C. 2011. Os desafios de legitimidade em sistemas multissetoriais de governança: uma análise do Forest Stewardship Council. Ambiente and Sociedade 14(1): 115–132.


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Constraints to smallholder tree planting in the northern mountainous regions of Viet Nam: a need to extend technical knowledge and skills T.H. DOa, and R. MULIAa a

World Agroforestry Centre, Viet Nam Country Office, HCMCC Tower, 249A Thuy Khue street, Ha Noi, Viet Nam

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

ABSTRACT This paper presents a literature review and case study on constraints to smallholder’s tree planting in northern mountainous areas of Viet Nam. It reveals that existing literature primarily highlights constraints within the ‘input domain’ that relates to inputs to tree system establishment such as land availability, or ‘output domain’ associated with market of tree system products, but sparsely report constraints within ‘knowledge domain’ namely knowledge in tree management practice. Our case study exploring farmer’s perspectives also finds those related to input and output domain but identified lack of knowledge as the prime constraint, especially to poor farmers and ethnic minorities. We recommend that the dissemination of knowledge on tree system management, farmer’s skill capacity building, and improvement in the national extension system as well as its linkage with research and education, be placed in the forefront of policy to sustainably expand and intensify tree planting in the country. Keywords: constraints to tree planting, knowledge domain, northern mountainous regions, smallholder farmers, tree management practice

Contraintes ressenties par les petits exploitants de plantations d’arbres dans les régions montagneuses du nord du Vietnam : besoin d’élargir connaissances et aptitudes techniques T.H. DO et R. MULIA Ce papier présente une étude-cas ainsi qu’une analyse de la littérature sur le sujet des contraintes ressenties par les petits exploitants de plantations d’arbres dans les régions montagneuses du nord du Vietnam. Il révèle que la littérature existante ne souligne principalement que les contraintes au sein du domaine «apports», concernant les apports à l’établissement du système arboricole, tels que la disponibilité du sol, ou celles provenant du domaine «sorties», associé au marché des produits du système arboricole. Elle n’offre en contraste qu’un rapport malingre sur le domaine «connaissance», principalement celui de la connaissance de la pratique de la gestion arboricole. Notre étude-cas explore les perspectives des fermiers et identifie également celles associées aux domaines «apports» et «sorties», tout en identifiant la carence de connaissance comme étant la contrainte principale, particulièrement en ce qui concerne les fermiers démunis et les minorités ethniques. Nous recommandons que soient placés en priorité dans la politique : la dissémination du savoir quant à la gestion du système arboricole, la fortification de la capacité des aptitudes des fermiers, et une amélioration des liens au sein du système national d’extension, ainsi que dans ses connections avec la recherche et l’éducation, afin de faire croître et intensifier la plantation d’arbres dans le pays.

Restricciones a la plantación de árboles por pequeños propietarios en las regiones montañosas del norte de Vietnam: la necesidad de ampliar los conocimientos técnicos y las habilidades T.H. DO y R. MULIA Este artículo presenta una revisión de la literatura y un estudio de caso de las restricciones a la plantación de árboles por parte de pequeños propietarios en las zonas montañosas del norte de Vietnam. Se pone de manifiesto que la literatura existente destaca principalmente las limitaciones en el ‘ámbito de los insumos’ que se relaciona con insumos para el establecimiento de sistemas de árboles, tales como la disponibilidad de tierras, o en el ‘ámbito de los resultados’ asociados al mercado de productos de sistemas silvícolas, pero raramente se mencionan las limitaciones dentro del ‘ámbito del conocimiento’, relacionadas con los conocimientos en la práctica del manejo forestal. El estudio de caso que explora las perspectivas de los agricultores encontró también las limitaciones relacionadas con los ámbitos de los insumos y los resultados, pero identificó la falta de conocimientos como la restricción principal, sobre todo para los agricultores pobres y las minorías étnicas. Se recomienda que la difusión de conocimientos sobre la gestión de sistemas silvícolas, el fomento de capacidades en los agricultores, y la mejora en el sistema nacional de extensión, así como su vínculo a la investigación y la educación, se coloque a la vanguardia de las políticas para ampliar e intensificar de forma sostenible la plantación de árboles en el país.

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T.H. Do, and R. Mulia

INTRODUCTION Global expansion of tree plantation has been predominately linked to large-scale plantations established by governments and corporations (Kröger 2012). Nevertheless, the forestry sector has experienced a shift from large-scale to smallholder plantations since the 1980s, when environmental and social issues associated with large-scale tree plantation projects arose (Snelder and Lasco 2008, Sandewall et al. 2010). The number of smallholder plantations, typically small plots of a half to a few hectares, have rapidly increased. Between 1990 and 2005, excluding the East Asian figure from the global tree plantation expansion, the area of smallholder plantations worldwide rose by 5.8 million ha from 15.2 to 21 million ha (Kröger 2012). By 2010, about a third of tree plantations worldwide were owned by smallholders, compared to less than 10% in 1990 (Sikor 2012, Sikor and Baggio 2014). In addition to developing forest plantations, smallholders have been increasingly involved in on-farm tree planting through the establishment of mixed perennials or tree-crop systems. However, these agricultural systems have not often been recognized by the forestry sector and have been less adopted for industrial purposes (Snelder and Lasco 2008). Although trees planted in the tree-crop systems such as agroforestry have been excluded in formal definitions used by the forestry sector, their roles in providing economic and environmental benefits have been widely acknowledged (Roshetko et al. 2008). Yet the success of smallholder plantations has not been equal across different countries and regions. In fact, failures or low performances are common (Kröger 2012), for example in Laos (Barney 2008) and Indonesia (Obidzinski and Dermawan 2010, Perdana et al. 2012). Smallholder farmers were found to face numerous barriers in planting and integrating trees into their land-use systems relating to biophysical and climate conditions, land tenure and land-use restrictions, availability of quality planting materials, credits to support long-term investment, and access to markets (Nawir et al. 2007, Snelder and Lasco 2008, Roshetko et al. 2008, Obidzinski and Dermawan 2010, Schnell et al. 2012, Harwood and Nambiar 2014). The progress of smallholder tree plantations has also been recognized as requiring considerable tailored assistance schemes and government subsidies (Bryon 2001). Meanwhile, more than half of the global demand for timber could be supplied from plantations, including smallholder plantations (Kirilenko and Sedjo 2007). Furthermore, the success of smallholder plantations can help to reduce pressures on natural forests and biodiversity, and support the development of sustainable forest management (SFM) that has been widely recognized for its importance (Roshetko 2013). The SFM criteria requires considerable effort to remove barriers in access to land, markets, planting materials, and incentive structures that many smallholders in developing countries encounter. These barriers can also be far more complex than the simple assumption that the tree plantation industry is capital-intensive and beyond the reach of often poor smallholders. Understanding these barriers can help to inform authorities who are addressing sustainable intensification of

tree plantations, poverty reduction, forest economic development, and retaining natural forests for conservation purposes. Viet Nam has made a significant contribution to global tree plantation dynamics. Between 1990 and 2010 the country expanded its total tree plantation from less than 1 million ha to 3.3–3.5 million ha (Putzel et al. 2012, Roshetko 2013, Sikor and Baggio 2014, To and Tran 2014), although over the same period there was also a loss of 304 000 ha of natural forest (FAO 2011, Roshetko 2013). The country’s production forest plantation area increased by 7% per year from 1990 to 2005 (Nawir et al. 2007), with smallholder households owning 52%-64% of the total area (Sikor and Baggio 2014). Government and donor communities have actively supported this process by allocating land, providing seedlings, offering financial subsidies and discounted credits, and facilitating lucrative markets for products from forest plantations. Smallholder plantations have also made remarkable changes to socio-economic and environmental conditions in Viet Nam. Timber from these plantations has been supplying raw materials to pulp and paper mills, for construction and furniture, and many other industries (Sandewall et al. 2010, Sikor 2012, To and Tran 2014). From 1990 to 2010 reforestation, wherein they played a key role, smallholder forest plantations helped Viet Nam to undergo a forest transition and a shift from decreasing to increasing forest cover (Meyfroidt and Lambin 2009, Meyfroidt 2013). However, some provinces have been reporting the reforestation process as problematic and not delivering on targeted environmental and socio-economic goals (Clement and Amezaga 2009, McElwee 2009, Meyfroidt and Lambin 2008b, To and Tran 2014). For example, in terms of environmental goals, while fast-growing exotic tree species that were planted to meet the demand for industrial wood (e.g. pulp and paper) have been providing economic benefits, there have also been concerns regarding their suitability for environmental services such as watershed protection and biodiversity conservation (Clement and Amezaga 2009, Putzel et al. 2012). Forest plantations in Viet Nam have largely involved lowincome smallholders (Auer 2012, Sikor 2012). An estimated 80% of those smallholders had less than five ha of plantation and, on average, each household was allocated less than three ha of forest land within two or three scattered plots (To and Tran 2014). Nevertheless, these small farm lands accounted for nearly two-thirds of all production plantations in the country (Sikor 2012). In northern Viet Nam, since the late 1980s after a period of massive and heavy forest cover loss, forest area started to recover and smallholders played an important role in this process (Truong et al., 2017). As a result, millions of hectares of designated forest lands have been converted to farm-based plantations (Ohlsson et al. 2005, Sandewall et al. 2010). Depending on the presence of enabling and limiting factors, farmers’ plots would either remain unchanged, be converted into an agroforestry or monoculture plantation or, quite often, become a mixture of them. Currently, although national afforestation programs such as the “Five Million Hectare Reforestation Programme” (5MHRP or Programme 661) were completed in 2010, tree planting has been continuously promoted as a key strategy to restore and enhance

Constraints to smallholder tree planting in Viet Nam

ecosystem services. For example, the Reducing Emission from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) and Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) programs, that also aim to support the livelihoods of smallholder farmers living in the forest margins. The Government of Viet Nam has also issued a new development strategy in order to advance the forestry sector’s contribution to local livelihoods and environmental protection. The 2006–2020 National Forest Protection and Development Strategy adjusts the current orientation of the forestry sector and builds upon the previous 2001–2010 Forestry Development Strategy approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) (VAFS 2007). It outlines the direction of the forestry sector in different regions, including the northern mountainous areas, and lists specific targets that can be achieved through the contribution of smallholders’ tree plantations. For the Northwest mountainous region, targets requiring participation from smallholder farmers outline a move to ‘diversify income sources on the basis of social forestry development, gradually reduce and replace the shifting cultivation by agroforestry for forest protection and development and improvement of livelihoods for communities’ and ‘establish material supply areas for timber processing industry (paper, wood-based panels) and non-timber forest products (NTFPs)’. For the Northeast mountainous region, the target specifies ‘establish material supply areas linked with processing industries to meet essential demands on paper, woodchip, pit props, and furniture on the basis of intensive cultivation of 1.5 million ha production forests (including natural and plantation forests) and use high productivity sites on nearly 1 million ha of bare land for industrial concentrated material plantations establishment’. Given the important contribution of smallholder farmers in the forest plantation dynamic and performance in Viet Nam, and to improve the success, outcomes, and sustainability of the smallholder plantations, in this paper we present the results of a study that aimed to understand the constraints that smallholder farmers, particularly in the northern mountainous regions, face in tree planting either in the context of monoculture plantation or agroforestry. We did a literature review to assess the current state of research on constraints to tree planting in the regions, and a case study to explore the perspectives of smallholder farmers in Northeast and Northwest Viet Nam namely the two principal regions in northern mountainous areas. We focused on the mountainous areas because of their extremely difficult conditions such as rugged upland terrain and poor infrastructure and, additionally, are home to ethnic minorities with low literacy rates. These circumstances are regarded as major causes of high poverty rates in the regions, and pose a major constraint to tree planting.

MATERIALS AND METHODS Assessing current scientific knowledge on the constraints To assess the current state of research on constraints to tree planting in northern mountainous region of Viet Nam, we

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reviewed 31 peer-reviewed papers from different scientific journals, and 36 other scientific articles such as book chapters, project reports and proceedings. The literature mostly discusses constraints to tree planting in Viet Nam in general, although also covering the case of northern mountainous regions, with 27 articles specific to the region. We classified constraints to tree planting into three domains: (1) ‘input domain’ associated with inputs to tree system establishment such as limited land availability, lack of secured land rights, financial limitations for investment, and the absence of quality seedlings; (2) ‘knowledge domain’ namely knowledge of tree system establishment and maintenance, such as lack of access to tree planting technology, information, and lack of knowledge and skills in tree system maintenance practice; and (3) ‘output domain’ associated with outputs from the tree system, concerning the lack of access to markets for tree products. Assessing local knowledge on the constraints The case study was conducted because existing literature mostly focuses on analysing the impacts of biophysical and socio-economic conditions in the study sites to tree planting, rather than exploring local knowledge based on farmer’s perspectives. It is important to combine scientific knowledge, that investigates the influence of external factors, and local knowledge that understands farmer’s perspective on the constraints, since farmers are those who encountered and understand the degree of importance amongst different constraints. The case study consists of two sample cases: one from Northeast and another from Northwest Viet Nam. The first describes the smallholder perspectives on constraints to tree planting in the context of monoculture plantation, and the latter in the context of agroforestry. Sample case for monoculture plantation The sample case is from Bac Kan province of Northeast Viet Nam, situated at 22°10′0″N, 105°50′0″E (Figure 1). The province has rugged, forested terrains and the highest altitude among the eleven provinces in the Northeast mountainous region of Viet Nam. Its topography ranges from 40 to 1 640 m asl. and has an area of 4 859 km2. The climatic condition in the province is typical tropical monsoon with a rainy season usually from May to October and a dry season from November to April, with the annual average temperature of 25°C. According to the 2013 provincial data, Bac Kan has a total population of 305 560 people, including different ethnic minority groups such as Tay, Nung, and Dao. About 83% of the province’s total population are dependent on agriculture and Bac Kan is considered one of the poorest provinces in the region. The average forest land area allocated to households is 1.5 ha and, according to the data from the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the area of forest cover in 2010 almost doubled to 63% compared to 38% in 1990. By 2020, the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment formulated a target of 82% forest cover expected to achieve through reforestation

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and expansion of timber plantations in the province’s area. Bac Kan was part of the targeted area of the two main afforestation programs in Viet Nam, namely the “Greening the Barren Hills Programme” (or Programme 327) that was subsequently replaced by the 5MHRP. Due to its massive area of forest cover and high poverty rate, Bac Kan was also selected as a pilot province for REDD+. A total of 120 smallholder farmers were selected through a stratified random sampling from twelve communes spread across the province. We interviewed ten farmers per commune on constraints to tree planting in a focus group discussion. The ten farmerrs were divided into two groups with five farmers per group. No gender segregation was considered between groups. The interview was conducted based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) (Saaty 1990), where farmers firstly developed a list of preferable tree species for planting and identified a number of constraints to tree planting, for a pairwise comparison. The comparison results were drawn up into a list of factors with their degree of constraint to tree planting, for all tree species in general, and for each tree species in particular. The pairwise comparison, and the calculation of Eigen values that represent the degree of constraint to tree planting, were conducted with MS Excel. Sample case for agroforestry system The second sample case is from three provinces in the Northwest region of Viet Nam, i.e., Son La (21°10′N 104°0′E), Dien Bien (21°23′N 103°1′E) and Yen Bai (21°30′N 104°40′E) (Figure 1). The region consists of high mountainous areas inhabited by different ethnic minority groups such as H’mong, Khang, and Thai people. The total area of the region is about 4.4 million ha. The altitude in the three provinces ranges from 300 to 1 200 m asl. The climate is of a sub-humid tropical with an average annual temperature of 21°C, and annual rainfall from 1 200 to 1 600 mm in Dien Bien and Son La province, and from 1 700 to 2 000 mm in Yen Bai province. The local people have been practicing shifting cultivation with maize, upland rice, and cassava in the sloping areas for decades, resulting in serious soil erosion and degradation. To improve local livelihoods through crop diversification and to maintain soil fertility through avoiding further soil degradation, agroforestry practices either with timber or non-timber tree species have been proposed as potential solution (La et al. 2017). To understand the constraints to agroforestry adoption, a household survey was conducted with a total of 228 male and 66 female respondents from the three provinces. The households were first selected through a stratified random sampling across twelve communes in seven districts belong to the three provinces. Eventually, using a semi-structured questionnaire, respondents that were not adopting agroforestry were interviewed on their main constraints. During the survey, agroforestry was described in the context of an intercropping system with timber or non-timber tree species, and the respondents were asked to identify one main constraint among several provided options, or other than the options provided. The options included lack of technical knowledge and skill, financial and labour limitation, and complexity in practicing agroforestry.

FIGURE 1 Location of Bac Kan province in the Northeast region, and Son La, Dien Bien, and Yen Bai provinces in the Northwest region of Viet Nam

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Constraints within the input domain Lack of access to land resources and land rights Since mid-1980s, following the declaration of the Policy on Economic Reform (or Doi Moi in Vietnamese) in 1986, Viet Nam has radically reformed its forests by decentralising forest and land management. To achieve this, the government transferred property rights of forest lands from State entities, e.g., owned by State Forest Enterprises, to households, communities, and other entities (Castella et al. 2006, Clement and Amezaga 2008, Sandewall et al. 2010). The intention of this


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FIGURE 2 Rationale of forest land allocation program in Viet Nam (Source: Castella 2006, To and Tran 2014)

forest land allocation (FLA) and devolution of rights initiative was to create better livelihoods for poor farmers and boost forest protection and expansion in a similar manner to the successful transfer of agricultural land rights (Gomerio et al., 2000, Dinh 2005, Linde-Rahr 2008, Clement and Amezaga 2009) (Figure 2). Despite its intentions, the FLA has been falling short in many areas. A majority of farmers have been seeing the FLA as a top-down, complex, and unclear process (Castella et al. 2006, Jakobsen et al. 2007, Clement and Amezaga 2009). The process has also been reported to prioritize support for households with willingness, sufficient labour and financial capital to do afforestation (Gomerio et al. 2000, Ohlsson et al. 2005, McElwee 2009). This has not been favorable to poor households (Ohlsson et al. 2005, Sandewall et al. 2010) who are more likely to fail in establishing forest plantations on their own because their allocated lands have low-quality soil and limited accessibility (Ohlsson et al. 2005, Sandewall et al. 2010). Meanwhile, several authors claim that good quality forestry lands were never actually allocated and remain under State management (McElwee 2009, To and Tran 2014). In some villages, not a single poor household has become a land allocation beneficiary. Worse still, a handful of poor farmers have lost their cultivation lands during the FLA process (McElwee 2009). By 2014, about 14 million ha of forest land has been allocated to households and organizations and, despite the country having 3.2 million ha of unallocated forest land left, about 300 000 households in the Northwest mountainous regions were still deprived of production forest lands (To and Tran 2014). These figures may in fact be higher because FLA records in the Northwest region were considered inaccurate (To and Tran 2014, Pham et al. 2016). This lack of access to land resources will likely be a major constraint to smallholder tree planting in the region and in the country in general, while massive areas of forest lands are still managed by Stateentities (Dermawan et al. 2013, To and Tran 2014). Furthermore, lack of secured land rights also discourages smallholders from investing their resources in forest lands for long-term benefits, e.g., by planting trees (Nguyen 2006b, Sekhar 2007,

Linde-Rahr 2008, Do et al. 2016). Some authors also claimed that there is still a large number of smallholder farmers who either merely have de facto tenure over forest plots or are under contract arrangements with State entities and thus not motivated to plant trees on land with such status (e.g. McElwee 2009, To and Tran 2014). Lack of access to credit and financial capital From 1998 to 2010, the 5MHRP provided subsidies for tree planting that ranged from 75 to 250 USD per ha, depending on the region (Sikor 2001, de Jong et al. 2006, To and Tran 2014). Ultimately, the subsidies failed to encourage tree planting because they were too small; only covering a fraction of establishment costs (Ohlsson 2009, Simelton et al. 2016). The State also issued policies providing access to low-interest loans to promote tree plantations. However, these were also ineffective because the policies were not implemented using reliable financial resources and private partners (To and Tran 2014). Some authors also reported that credit support for smallholder plantation was unsuccessful due to complicated procedures and inappropriate stipulations, i.e., due dates before harvesting (Dinh 2005). Although there were a number of financial mechanisms providing credit discounts to support smallholder plantations, none were reliable (Sikor 2011). Loan-bank schemes had credit policies that poor households were unable to comply with and had, in some cases, offered high interest rates that limited smallholder engagement (Dinh 2005, Clement and Amezaga 2009). Lack of access to quality seedlings Between 1990 and 2010, about 300 000–470 000 ha of forest were planted annually under reforestation programs. Over the 20-year period, seedling demand for forest and timber species far exceeded supply capacity (Nyoka et al. 2015). Official seedling production areas could only meet less than 20% of the actual seedling demand (Nguyen 2007). As a result, farmers had to gather seedlings from natural forests and other unknown, unofficial seedling sources that had lower survival rates (Nguyen 2007, Pham et al. 2016).

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Farmer and government nurseries were equally important in supplying the 5MHRP in northern Viet Nam (Sandewall et al. 2010, Hoang et al. 2011, Nyoka et al. 2015). In some provinces in the Northeast region such as Phu Tho, farmers were free to produce seedlings. However, in other provinces such as Tuyen Quang, farmer nurseries and other private facilities were almost absent because seedling production was strictly controlled (Sandewall et al. 2010). Even with access to local nurseries, farmers had a limited selection of seedlings to choose from (Hoang et al. 2011. Nyoka et al. 2015). Hence, lack of access to high-quality planting materials has both prevented farmers from forest planting and lowered the quality and productivity of plantation forests (Nguyen 2007). In the later stage of the 5MHRP, this barrier was partially addressed through mass production of rooted cuttings of Eucalyptus clones and Acacia hybrid clones (Nguyen 2007). Although developing root cutting and other advanced tissue culture techniques have gained popularity throughout the country, seedling quality remains a challenge to successful forest plantation (de Jong et al. 2006, Putzel et al. 2012). Constraints within the knowledge domain A number of authors have indicated that farmers’ lack of technical capacity and technical support from reforestation programs in tree system establishment and maintenance were obstacles to developing smallholder plantations (Gomiero et al. 2000, Gilmour et al. 2000, Alther et al. 2002, Lang 2002, Ohlsson et al. 2005, Castella et al. 2006, Nguyen 2006b, McElwee 2009, Dermawan et al. 2013). However, they barely provided supporting scientific data and evidence. For example, Dinh (2005) argued that the main reason farmers in northern Viet Nam were not converting their allocated lands to plantations was the lack of technical know-how related to poor extension services in the region. According to the author, this is likely because extension staff and authorities have been concerned about increasing the quantity rather than the quality of the reforestation projects’ impact. Total reforested area has been considered a more important indicator than tree survival rate (Alther et al. 2002). Roshetko et al. (2008) discussed the knowledge domain in three aspects, i.e. knowlegde on tree nursery management and seedling propagation, on tree system establishment and management, and on harvest, post-harvest and market management. In their review on policy constraints to quality germplasm in Viet Nam, Hoang et al. (2015) indicated that smallholder farmers were unable to produce quality seedlings due to poor material base, low technical capacity, and limited knowledge related to seed and seedling production. In another study, Hoang et al. (2017) did a survey and reported that majority of farmers in Northwest Viet Nam were not adopting agroforestry due to lack of knowledge in tree species with high market demand. In general, number of literature that discusses constraints in the knowledge domain is limited, especially for the case of northern mountainous areas, and particularly related to knowledge on tree system establishment and maintenance such as the link between tree species

and land suitability, and technical knowledge in tree management practice. Constraints within the output domain A large portion of existing literature considers market access as key to expanding smallholder tree plantations (Nguyen 2006a, Meyfroidt and Lambin 2008a, Sandewall et al. 2010, To and Tran 2014). In northern mountainous areas, markets for farm-based timber products include urban consumers and the mining, fuel wood, and exporting chip industries (Nawir et al. 2007, Sandewall et al. 2010). Paper mills, especially Bai Bang Paper Mill, have been the main buyers and encouraged smallholder farmers to develop their tree plantations (Nawir et al. 2007, Ohlsson 2009, Sandewall et al. 2010). However, the struggle with market demand has continued in remote parts of the region due to lack of market information, poor road networks, and absence of processing industries (Lang 2002, McElwee 2009). On one hand, the quality of farm-based, fast-growing timber trees like Acacia, Eucalyptus, and pine in these more remote areas often do not meet market standards. On the other hand, should the timber quality be good enough to sell, the profit return is low due to high transportation costs (Lang 2002). Therefore, farmers have relied heavily on middlemen to access the timber market. Since these middlemen have a monopoly on market information, they hold complete power in bargaining product prices. This, combined with the fact that transactions between farmers and middlemen have often been conducted without any intervention (Putzel et al. 2012), means middlemen can easily cut large shares from farmers’ profits (Nawir et al. 2007). Some studies have found farm-gate prices have been as low as 50% of the mills-gate price (Sandewall et al. 2010). There have even been reports confirming that timber production areas as large as few thousand hectares would have difficulty finding a good market price if located far from processing industries (McElwee 2009). Recent infrastructure development in the mountainous areas of Viet Nam may have improved market access, but no study so far has investigated the issue. Constraints to tree planting in agroforestry Current literature focuses more on constraints to forest plantation in Viet Nam than constraints to smallholders’ agroforestry adoption and development. This is perhaps because agroforestry seldom receives policy attention and recognition for its contribution to the local and national economy. The story of widespread taungya (a local Burmese term meaning “cultivation on hillsides”) systems in Viet Nam illustrates how forest policies favour temporary rather than permanent agroforestry practices. Throughout reforestation project areas in Viet Nam, smallholder farmers have practiced taungya to either recover depleted natural forests or facilitate forest plantation. The system typically involves planting cassava or soybean in newly established Acacia, Cinnamomum, Hopea odorata, or Dipterocarpus plantations. Taungya was popularized during the implementation of 5MHRP, especially in


Northern Viet Nam where the forest land holding per household (i.e., 0.5–3.0 ha per household) was relatively smaller than other regions. The 5MHRP supplied forest dwellers with shifting cultivation areas within forest land boundaries to convert into forest plantations and provided seedlings (often of fast growing timber species). Since farmers had limited financial capital, they cultivated short-cycle crops on open forest lands, before the canopies could close, to ensure an even flow of return on their investment (Sandewall et al. 2010, Nguyen and Catacutan 2012). This system has been implemented using mostly local knowledge, without any guidance on technical design from extension officers. Permanent systems of mixed agricultural crops and trees like agroforestry are still considered illegal, even on highly degraded forest lands. The government’s preference for developing taungya compared to other agroforestry systems has been reported by several authors, including Nguyen and Catacutan (2012) and Simelton et al. (2016). Accordingly, since early 2000, research and government agencies have focused on testing and demonstrating forest species-based taungya agroforestry systems, while NGOs show more interest in multi-strata agroforestry systems like forest garden. Our literature review suggests tree planting in the agroforestry and forest plantation context share similar constraints, including limited access to land, quality seedlings, and an unstable market price for agroforestry tree products (Mai et al. 2005, Hoang et al. 2011, Hoang et al. 2017). However, compared to forest plantation or tree monoculture planting, barriers to tree planting in the agroforestry context also include the presence of competing forestry policies and practices in the uplands and agricultural policies in the lowlands (Do et al. 2016). Lack of access to secured land tenure Saint-Macary et al. (2010) found that in the Northwest region, plots with land titles are more likely to be covered by agroforestry than those without, and tenure insecurity carrying the threat of being reallocated discouraged farmers from investing in agroforestry. This is in line with earlier reports by Be (1996) and Woods and Petheram (2001). One study found tenure right had no impact on agroforestry adoption in the Northeast region, not because tenure rights were secured, but rather because the local ethnic farmers surveyed could not differentiate their de facto ownership of land with de jure ownership (Sekhar 2007). In Viet Nam’s mountainous regions, households are often allocated relatively small, scattered forest and agricultural lands. This challenges land holders to build self-contained agroforestry models at a household scale (Tran 2005, Hoang 2012). Agroforestry is practiced in these regions as a “marginal” land-use option; i.e., a flexible cultivation method with few opportunities for high income. Nguyen and Catacutan (2015) discovered that agroforestry systems can be more easily adopted by farmers who have spare land or lands with low fertility, or those being forced or voluntarily intend to reforest their land through establishing a plantation.

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Lack of access to quality seedlings In general, smallholder farmers in Viet Nam lack access to nurseries that can provide diverse, high-quality tree seedlings for agroforestry. The germplasm supply system is supposed to be centrally managed with very high transaction costs involved for decision making, but the actual management is ineffective (Hoang et al. 2015). For timber and forest tree species, since the implementation of massive afforestation programs like the 5MHRP, nurseries and seedling providers have strongly depended on the government’s forest programs as their main clients, especially in the targeted northern mountainous regions. Consequently, nurseries have only developed fast-growing, exotic tree species such as Acacia or Eucalyptus (Johannsen et al. 2011, Hoang et al. 2015). According to a recent compilation of tree nursery data from eight countries in Asia and Africa, nurseries in Viet Nam offered the lowest variety of tree species, providing only 1–10 tree species per nursery, compared to 1–30 species per nursery in Indonesia and an average of 17 species per nursery in China (Nyoka et al. 2015). For fruit tree species, the seedling market is dominated by smallholder producers with high uncertainties of genetic quality, while State-owned institution and private companies can only supply a small seedling quantity (Hoang et al. 2015). Key institutions in Viet Nam have agreed that the dissemination of qualified germplasm is the most important factor for tree domestication, given that the current efforts are fragmented and the potential benefits to smallholder plantations (Gunasena and Roshetko 2000). Smallholders’ nurseries have the capacity to provide the same quantity of seedlings as larger-scale nurseries and play an important role in supplying agroforestry projects. However, they lack access to investment capital, relevant technical support, market information, and perhaps most importantly, high quality germplasms (Johannsen et al. 2011, Nyoka et al. 2015). These factors limit their production and thereby hinder farmers from accessing quality seedlings. Despite their importance, smallholder nurseries cannot provide further contributions under the current centralized management system (Hoang et al. 2015). Lack of access to markets One reason agroforestry products in Viet Nam lack access to markets is their inferior quality. For example, fruit trees, an important component of multi-strata agroforestry systems in many regions, e.g., the uplands of Northwest Viet Nam, have been replaced by other tree species because domestic products could not compete with the quality of imported products (CARES 2004). A lack of market for products from homegarden agroforestry systems were reported as a major barrier to sustaining and intensifying homegardens. Furthermore, most homegarden products are seasonal and therefore experience price fluctuations (Nguyen et al. 2013). Similarly, the markets for other agroforestry products such as coffee, fruits, and rubber are also unstable unlike the market for timber products from forest plantations and have experienced significant turbulence during the past decades (Tran 2005, Nguyen and Catacutan 2012). Simelton et al. (2016) reported that in

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FIGURE 3 Constraints to tree planting according to farmers in Bac Kan province (n = 120 farmers). The error bars indicate one standard error from the mean

Northwest Viet Nam, policy support focuses more on agricultural supply than demand and almost no policy exists relating to markets and distribution. They also found the strong dependence of fruit producers on local traders has been limiting farmers’ access to better markets. In the uplands, remote location and poor infrastructure have been obstructing farmers from gaining access to markets and growing trees and other cash crops using shifting cultivation practices (Alther et al. 2002, Rasul and Thapa 2003, Do et al. 2016). Similar observations were found in reports for markets of agroforestry products in southern and central highlands of Viet Nam (Rasul and Thapa 2003, Garrity et al. 2006). Sample case 1: Constraints in Northeast Viet Nam Based on the AHP pairwise comparison, one of the prime constraints to tree planting in the Northeast region in the context of monoculture plantation was a lack of knowledge of tree system establishment and maintenance practice (Figure 3). This was attributed by 65% of respondents to the absence of information about tree planting techniques, 25% to not knowing tree system maintenance techniques, 5% to not knowing the links between tree species and land suitability, and the rest to general issues related to tree planting. Other important factors were associated with the input and output domain such as poor access to markets, limited land availability, financial limitation for plot establishment, and absence of quality seedlings. The lack of knowledge related to both timber and nontimber tree species that smallholder farmers preferred to plant (Figure 4a); and surprisingly, to Acacia and Mangletia as well, namely two tree species strongly supported by local authorities for planting in afforestation programs. The farmers reported that they also faced constraints related to market, financial, land availability and seedling quality factors of both tree species (Figure 4a,b). This might indicate that the

Vietnamese authority did not provide sufficient support and enabling conditions to smallholder farmers to enable the success of tree planting programs in the province. The current extension service in Bac Kan might also be ineffective in disseminating knowledge, even related to afforestation tree species, to smallholder farmers. Mulia et al. (2016), using the same dataset, analysed constraints to tree planting for poor and non-poor farmers. Poor farmers are defined as those with an annual income level below the national poverty line (approximately 220 USD per capita). They found both types of farmers had the same top five constraints, but ranked differently. The constraints by order of importance for poor households were: lack of knowledge, lack of access to market, financial limitations, land availability, and poor-quality seedlings. For nonpoor households, land availability was the most important factor, followed by lack of access to markets, poor quality seedlings, financial limitations, and lack of knowledge. Non-poor farmers likely perceived lack of knowledge as a less significant barrier than poor farmers because they often have better education and information networks to share tree planting techniques and plot management practices. Therefore, whilst lack of knowledge was considered a critical constraint to tree planting for both categories of farmers, it was considered more important among poor farmers. Sample case 2: Constraints in Northwest Viet Nam In the context of agroforestry, out of the 228 total male farmers interviewed, only 13% adopted the system, while adoption rate for female farmers was relatively higher at 21% from a total of 66 farmers (Table 1). Non-adopters identified lack of knowledge as their main constraint to agroforestry adoption. Specifically, about 37% of males and 39% of females claimed that they lacked technical knowledge and skill in agroforestry system establishment and maintenance practices, either with


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FIGURE 4 Constraints to tree planting of preferred species according to farmers in Bac Kan province. Names of tree species are provided in English when available

timber or fruit trees. This was also reported by 31% of males and 29% of females regarding cash crops (Table 1). Other constraints included labour shortages, complexity in practicing agroforestry, and financial limitations. A province-level analysis informs that lack of knowledge was identified as the main constraint to agroforestry adoption in Dien Bien and Son La province, but not in Yen Bai (Table 2). This applies for the case of agroforestry with timber or fruit trees, and also cash crops. In Yen Bai, farmers identified labour shortages as the main constraint to adopt agroforestry

with timber or fruit trees, and complexity in practice as well as labour shortages related to agroforestry with cash crops. The difference in main constraints among the three provinces is likely associated with ethnic groups. In Dien Bien, two dominant ethnic groups among selected farmers were H’mong and Thai. In Son La, three groups were dominant namely Thai, H’mong, and Khang. In Yen Bai, Kinh group was also dominant beside H’mong. In Yen Bai province, all farmers who identified lack of knowledge as the main constraint to develop agroforestry with timber or fruit trees, were from

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TABLE 1 Constraints to agroforestry adoption in the Northwest of Viet Nam Food crops with timber or fruit trees Reason not to adopt

Food crops with cash crops*

Male

%

Female

%

Male

%

Female

%

78

37%

22

39%

68

31%

17

29%

9

4%

5

9%

9

4%

7

11%

1

Lack of technical capacity

2

Financial limitation

3

Labour shortage

47

22%

12

21%

20

9%

7

12%

4

Difficult to practice

24

11%

2

4%

45

21%

6

10%

5

Other reasons

52

25%

15

27%

74

34%

22

37%

210

92%

56

85%

216

95%

59

89%

18

8%

10

15%

12

5%

7

11%

Total not adopt (people) Total adopt (people) Total respondent (people)

228

66

228

66

* For example coffee, rubber, or tea

TABLE 2 Constraints to agroforestry adoption by province in the Northwest of Viet Nam Food crops with timber or fruit trees Reason not to adopt and number of farmers 1 Lack of technical capacity

Dien Bien

Son La

Food crops with cash crops*

Yen Bai

Dien Bien

Son La

Yen Bai

64

29

7

39

37

9

2 Financial limitation

0

13

1

1

12

3

3 Labour shortage

1

9

49

0

10

17

4 Difficult to practice

0

26

0

0

31

20

17

34

16

44

29

23

5 Other reasons * For example coffee, rubber, or tea

H’mong group; while the Kinh farmers mostly mentioned about lack of labours. For the case of agroforestry with cash crops, majority of farmers identifying lack of knowledge were also from H’mong group, with only some from the Kinh. Hoang et al. (2017) also conducted a study on constraints to agroforestry adoption in Northwest region of Viet Nam, and reported that only about 10% of farmers in the region were practising agroforestry. The main constraints to the agroforestry adoption were limited options of tree species with high market demand as claimed by 38% of non-adopters, limited land resources (36%), and lack of investment capital (17%). Among their sampled villages, four of 14 villages were dominated by the Kinh group, while the others by ethnic minorities such as H’mong, Thai, and Kho Mu. The Kinh farmers constituted 32% of total number of respondents. This can partially explain the absence of lack of knowledge among the main constraints to agroforestry adoption when the analysis was conducted by pooling responses from all villages and all ethnic groups. The authors did not provide analysis at province level or by ethnic group. Catacutan and Naz (2015) used information on the reasons not to adopt agroforestry in Table 1 to highlight gender issues in decision making and challenges to agroforestry adoption in the Northwest region. They also reported that local people in the provinces developed agroforestry by planting trees either around farm boundaries, amid annual crops, in

hedges, or in homegardens. Amongst these, the most dominant agroforestry practice was homegarden, followed by tree planting with annual crops, multi-strata, fallow, hedgerow, and woodlots. Female-headed households were found to have fewer tree species cultivated in their homegardens than male-headed households. Need of effective extension system in Viet Nam The farmer’s lack of knowledge in tree system establishment and maintenance, as shown in the case study, might indicate that the current extension system in the study sites is ineffective in disseminating knowledge, and in building technical skills of smallholder farmers, especially poor farmers and those belong to ethnic minority groups. Farmers were uninformed on where to plant and how to manage the trees, including when mixing with intercrops. The extension staffs might also be poorly equipped with sufficient knowledge and skills in tree management practice due to lack of agricultural and forestry background, and adequate trainings. Sufficient knowlegde on tree establishment and management practice is important for farmers to determine suitable tree species for different biophysical and socio-economic conditions, and for different purposes. This further will contribute to the outcomes including economic return and environmental services that can be derived from the system (Roshetko et al. 2008), and furthermore, sustainability of the system.


Based on the review of some literature concerning extension service in Viet Nam, we found that the current agricultural extension system in the country has been criticized for its top-down and ‘one size fits all’ approach as well as its services which mainly target higher-income farmers (Beckman 2001, Pham et al. 2003, Sekhar 2007, GFRAS 2012). A number of studies in the northern mountainous regions of Viet Nam confirm that even TV programs and neighbors have been considered more valued sources of agricultural information than government extension workers (Mai et al. 2005; Catacutan and Naz 2015, Hoang et al. 2017). Under the existing extension system, non-poor farmers are expected to help transmit knowledge and technologies to poor communities. However, information has rarely been delivered that way. Furthermore, the system’s top-down approach has been largely neglecting local knowledge and preference for agricultural systems and components as well as farmers’ available resources and capacity to understand extension materials and technologies. Extension subjects and materials developed by central and provincial agencies have been seen as less attractive to farmers and are less concerned with local biophysical, socio-economic and climatic conditions. The extension system has only recently become more responsive to local needs because farmers have more freedom within the decision-making process (Beckman 2001, Janssen 2004). Moreover, since many extension trainers were never provided an extension training course, their communication of messages to farmers with diverse backgrounds, education levels, and needs has been ineffective (Christoplos 1996, Vo 2012). Furthermore, the literacy rate of poor farmers in the uplands and remote sites is low, especially amongst female farmers and ethnic minorities that lack access to education (Swinkels and Turk 2006). Merely providing materials to these farmers as an alternative to direct extension has been ineffective because they cannot read nor comprehend the messages. This poor communication system has also been creating a greater disparity between the knowledge and socio-economic conditions of poor and non-poor households (Vo 2012). Other issues regarding the effectiveness of extension services in Viet Nam include the recruitment of staffs with limited agricultural educational background and limited annual budget allocation from the central government (GFRAS 2012; Nguyen and Catacutan 2012). Pham et al. (2003) claimed most of the government’s budget for forestry extension is used to support plant breeding and establishment of demonstration plots, leaving only a small portion for training activities and knowledge dissemination to households. In cases like the northern mountainous regions, extension services from non-government organization (NGO) projects have been claimed as more effective than the services from the State forestry extension programs (de Jong et al. 2006, Dinh 2005). Regarding agroforestry specifically, many types of agroforestry systems are considered knowledge intensive due to their complex nature involving different species, components, and interactions between them. Thus, knowledge on agroforestry management techniques is crucial to boosting smallholder farmers’ adoption of these practices. Apart from the

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traditional knowledge of sustainable intercropping and tree planting, research on agroforestry in Viet Nam has been encouraged since the 1990s by various NGOs and research institutions (Nguyen and Catacutan 2012). While these studies continue to increase the knowledge on agroforestry management options and principles, there is still no reliable medium for transferring the information to smallholder farmers practicing, or willing, to practice agroforestry. This problem persists because, beside the limited number of extension staff and not reach to the village level (Rudebjer and Del Castillo 1999, Sekhar 2007), in general they only have proper training in either agriculture or forestry and not disciplines like agroforestry that cover the interaction between system components and how to make improvements using those interactions (Rudebjer and Del Castillo 1999, Nguyen and Catacutan 2012). Moreover, as in the case of monoculture plantations, ethnic minorities practicing agroforestry are usually endowed with a low level of literacy, making knowledge transfer from extension services difficult (Hoang et al. 2015). Nguyen (2012) identified ways to improve the effectiveness of extension system in Viet Nam. These include the improvement in extension service to reach more remote areas and ethnic minorities, modify the approach from top-down into local driven namely farmer-led and community-led approach to build more ‘participatory’ extension system, strengthen linkage between research and the extension system to intensify technology transfer and improve the extension materials, and enhance the capacity of extension staffs in delivering knowledge and technology to farmers including to those belong to ethnic minority groups. Ideally, the extension services should be tailored to local context, e.g. with extension agents who can communicate the materials in local languages and have advanced skills in adult learning. Therefore, the extension system can deliver technologies with oral presentations and materials that smallholder and poor farmers can easily understand. The author also highlights the need to connect the extension system to scientific knowledge from research institutions, universities, or international organizations. Scientific research is an important means to generate and compile knowledge or technology that considers smallholder conditions, that otherwise would not be available to the extension staffs and farmers (Roshetho et al. 2012). Therefore, the government needs to support research activities especially those related to constraints and enabling conditions for smallholder tree planting, and build an effective system to link research, education, and extension system that has not been well established in the country.

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS The existing literature has emphasized constraints within the input and output domains for tree planting in the northern mountainous regions of Viet Nam. These include limited land resources and secured land rights, limited financial capital, lack of quality germplasm, poor access to markets, or a combination of these factors. Our case study also finds those constraints, but the main constraint to tree planting in the

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regions was lack of knowledge in tree system establishment and maintenance practice. This barrier primarily applies to poor farmers like shown in the sample case from the Northeast region, and ethnic minority groups like in the case from Northwest region. Both poor farmers and ethnic minorities typically have limited access to external information. This knowledge barrier can be linked to the absence of extension services that reach the grass-roots level, especially in remote regions of the country including the northern mountainous regions. It also partially relates to extension services not sharing information effectively amongst populations with low literacy rates, namely ethnic minorities who speak different dialects. Meanwhile, through the 2006–2020 National Forest Protection and Development Strategy, the government expects contribution from the smallholder plantations, both from monoculture plantation and agroforestry. Therefore, there is a risk that the government cannot achieve the targets formulated in the strategy, while the farmers are still uninformed on the tree management practice. Therefore, for the government to achieve its targets, we recommend: • Among efforts to overcome constraints in tree planting related to input and output domain, improvement in farmer’s knowledge and skills related to tree system establishment and maintenance, and improvement in the national extension system, should be placed in the policy forefront to improve the success, productivity and profitability of the smallholder plantations. • Extension workers should be provided with more knowledge and skills relating to tree planting and managing trees in integrated farming systems, as well as developing more efficient and effective ways to transfer this knowledge to farmers. Since the lack of knowledge barrier particularly relates to poor farmers and ethnic minority groups that generally have low literacy rate and reside in remote areas, extension agents should be able to reach these areas and communicate the materials verbally in local languages. • The government should also improve and maintain the link among research, education, and extension system, since this linkage has not been well established in the country. Part of this, research activities especially related to constraints and enabling conditions for the success of smallholder tree planting should encouraged and supported. Related to other constraints, we recommend: • Relevant government agencies should pay more attention to the inadequacy of the current credit system, since financial limitations were also revealed as a major barrier to tree planting in the northern mountainous regions. There is an urgency to develop a more flexible credit system especially for poor farmers, in terms of loan procedures, interest rates, payback period, and other requirements. • Remote communities, especially in mountainous areas with rugged terrain like the Northeast and Northwest

regions, are poorly connected to markets due to distance and a lack of information. Therefore, there is a need for authorities to keep upgrading the transportation network, e.g., roads and bridges, to allow farmers to conveniently market their tree products thereby further promotes tree planting. • Finally, local governments need to assist local nurseries with propagation techniques and market access to ensure nurseries can produce quality seedlings for both native and exotic timber, fruit, and commercial tree species.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We thank Delia Catacutan and Elisabeth Simelton for their valuable comments. We also thank Doan Thi Luyen for her support with data collection. We acknowledge the CGIAR for funding this research through the Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry Landscape Management (CRP 6.3).

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Estimating carbon avoided from the implementation of reduced-impact logging in Sabah, Malaysia M.V. GALANTEa, M.A. PINARDb and M. MENCUCCINIa,c a

School of GeoSciences, The University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh, Scotland Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Zoology Building, Tillydrone Avenue, The University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland c ICREA at CREAF, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona, Spain b


SUMMARY The objective of this study was to investigate the design and application of a carbon baseline for commercial timber harvest activities involving conventional timber harvest activities (CNV), relative to reduced-impact logging (RIL) in Sabah, Malaysia. As only RIL is eligible to be practiced in production forests, a baseline of CNV was estimated from the literature. The principle of net present value was applied to the postharvest accumulation of carbon stocks after RIL to model a conservative ‘crediting’ baseline. Two areas representing opposite ends of a range of anthropogenic disturbance were sampled, with an old growth lower montane forest, and a lowland severely logged-over dipterocarp forest investigated before-, and two- and three-years after harvest, respectively. Areas impacted by CNV were estimated to contain 12–39% of pre-harvest carbon stock, relative to 57–63% under RIL and estimated to accumulate carbon in the range of 0.68–1.25 tC ha–1 yr–1, averaging 14–55 years for recovery; in-line with body of knowledge. While the main limitation was our inability measure CNV directly, a balance of understanding is required for the development of a ‘best estimate’ using the literature. Keywords: baseline; carbon; reduced-impact logging; REDD-plus; Sabah

Estimation de la quantité de carbone n’ayant pas pénétré dans l’atmosphère au cours de pratiques de coupe de bois à impact réduit, sous l’égide de la Convention sur le changement climatique à Sabah, Malaisie M.V. GALANTE, M.A. PINARD et M. MENCUCCINI L’objectif de cette étude a été d’inspecter le design et l’application d’une base de carbone pour les activités d’une coupe de bois commerciale comprenant des activités conventionnelles de coupe de bois (CNV) évaluées quant à la coupe à impact réduit (RIL) sous l’égide du Cadre de la convention sur le changement climatique des Nations-Unies à Sabah, Malaisie. Une ligne de base pour les CNV a été estimée en se basant sur la littérature, puisque seule la RIL est éligible dans les forêts de production. Le principe de la valeur présente nette a été appliqué à l’accumulation des stocks de carbone post-récolte RIL pour modeler une ligne de base «crédit» conservatrice. Deux zones représentant les pôles opposés d’un éventail de dérangements anthropogéniques ont été isolées: une forêt montagneuse basse de croissance ancienne et une forêt de diptérocarpacées des terres basses sévèrement exploitée, examinées dans le passé et, respectivement, deux et trois ans après leur exploitation. Les zones impactées par les CNV contenaient un stock de carbone précédant la coupe, estimé à 12–39%, comparé aux 57–63% sous la RIL, et dont l’accumulation de carbone était estimée dans l’espace de 0.68–1.25tC ha–1 an–1, résultant en moyenne à de 14 à 55 ans de rétablissement, en accord avec le consensus de connaissance général. Alors que notre limitation principale résidait dans notre incapacité à mesurer les CNV directement, un équilibre de compréhension est nécessaire pour développer la «meilleure» évaluation, en se basant sur la littérature.

Estimación del carbono que se ha evitado que alcance la atmósfera gracias a las prácticas de aprovechamiento de impacto reducido en virtud de la Convención del Cambio Climático en Sabah, Malasia M.V. GALANTE, M.A. PINARD y M. MENCUCCINI El objetivo de este estudio fue investigar el diseño y la aplicación de una línea de base de carbono para las actividades de aprovechamiento de madera comercial que implican actividades convencionales de aprovechamiento de madera (CNV, por sus siglas en inglés), en relación con el aprovechamiento de impacto reducido (AIR) bajo la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas para el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC) en Sabah (Malasia). Puesto que tan sólo se puede usar AIR en los bosques de producción, se estimó una línea de base de las CNV a partir de la literatura. Se aplicó el principio de valor actual neto a la acumulación posterior al aprovechamiento de las reservas de carbono después del

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AIR para modelizar una línea de base conservadora de ‘crédito’. Se muestrearon dos áreas que representan extremos opuestos de una serie de perturbaciones antropogénicas, en las que se estudió un bosque montano bajo sobremaduro, y un bosque dipterocarpáceo de planicie fuertemente aprovechado, con mediciones tomadas antes del aprovechamiento, y dos y tres años después de este, respectivamente. Se estimó que las áreas afectadas por las CNV contenían de 12–39% de las reservas de carbono antes del aprovechamiento, con relación al 57–63% bajo el AIR y se estimó que acumularon una cantidad de carbono en el intervalo entre 0,68 a 1,25 tC ha–1 año–1, con un promedio de 14–55 años para su recuperación. Esto está en línea con el conocimiento actual existente. Mientras que la principal limitación fue la incapacidad de medir las CNV directamente, se requiere un equilibrio de entendimiento para el desarrollo de una ‘mejor estimación’ mediante el uso de la literatura.

INTRODUCTION The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established to aid in the stabilisation of atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG), at levels to prevent anthropogenic interference with the climate system. With the forest sector estimated to contribute 15–20% of GHG emissions (IPCC 2014), efforts to curb the release of GHGs were recently aspired through the ‘Paris Agreement’, with 170 Parties, including Malaysia, agreeing to the longterm goal of keeping the increase in the global temperatures in this century below two degrees Celsius (UNFCCC 2016). Malaysia intends to reduce GHG concentrations in permanent forest estates through the implementation of ‘sustainable forest management’, one of five activities outlined in Decision 1/CP. 16 of the UNFCCC (NRE 2015a, b, UNFCCC 2007). It is known that excessive damage can inhibit regeneration of the residual forest and undermine the long-term sustainability of the forest for commercial timber production (Ong 2006, Pinard et al. 2000b). To avoid excessive GHG emissions from commercial timber harvest activities in Malaysia, improvements can be made on conventional commercial timber harvest practices. Project-based activities under the UNFCCC are estimated against the quantity of carbon emissions that would be released into the atmosphere in the absence of the project, i.e., the carbon baseline (Brown et al. 1997, Streck 2010). Traditional timber harvesting practices, referred to as conventional timber harvest practices (CNV), are considered the carbon baseline, against which improved timber harvest practices, referred to as reduced-impact logging (RIL), can be measured. Harvesting commercial timber through CNV involves: a) the creation of forest infrastructure, i.e., forest roads, skid trails and machine platforms; and, b) the harvest of commercial timber species, i.e., the selective harvest of commercial merchantable tree species. Forest infrastructure are created using heavy machinery, i.e., bulldozers and backhoes, typically unplanned, and estimated to cover as much as 30–80% of a compartment area, resulting in areas devoid of vegetation. This is referred as ‘infrastructure created’ (Chai 1975, Sist et al. 2003). The average harvest of commercial timber under CNV ranges between 8–15 trees per hectare (trees ha–1), representing 50–120 cubic metres per hectare (m3 ha–1). In doing so, the residual stand is damaged, i.e., the damage of adjacent or nearby alive trees, and the uncontrolled skidding of trees to nearby temporary storage locations, which can result in 40–70% damage to trees in the residual forest. This is referred to as ‘harvest damage’ (Fox 1968, Nicholson 1958, Pinard and Putz 1996).

Improved approaches to commercial timber extraction, i.e., RIL, consist of a series of training, and pre- and postharvest measures, designed to avoid or minimise damage to trees in the residual forest and protect regeneration, while ensuring the forest continues to provide ecosystem services, such as habitats for wildlife, water purification, and carbon sequestration (Enters et al. 2001, Putz et al. 2012, van der Hout 1999). Relative to CNV in primary commercial production forests in Southeast Asia, RIL has been estimated to reduce damage to soils by up to 50%, reduce ground disturbance per tree harvested by up to 41%, and reduce the forest area converted to forest infrastructure up to 40%. Along with the reduction of canopy loss, RIL has been found to increase wood recovery through ‘directional felling’, i.e., the felling of trees in areas that cause the least amount of impact to the forest (Klassen 2001, Pinard et al. 2000b, Pinard and Putz 1996, Priyadi and Gunarso 2006, Putz and Nasi 2009, Winkler 1997). Reducing impact decreases damage and mortality, thus conserving carbon stocks, and ultimately GHG emissions from entering the atmosphere. The difference in carbon stocks between CNV and RIL practices, i.e., the amount of carbon avoided from entering the atmosphere, is termed ‘carbon storage’ (MacDicken 1997, Pinard and Cropper 2000, Sasaki 2011, Sasaki et al. 2016). In the State of Sabah, Malaysia, commercial timber production is restricted to permanent forest estates, termed forest management units (FMUs), which range in size from 30–100 000 ha, with only harvest practices involving RIL eligible to be practiced (Mannan and Awang 1997). First introduced in 1997 and revised in 2010, the State government prohibits CNV to strictly implement RIL (Sabah State Government 1996, 1997, The Star 2010). The mandate was designed to drive change into practice and expand forest governance beyond minimising damage towards relieving cumulative, long-term effects of poor harvest practices (Freitas and Pinard 2008, SFD 2007, 2010, Zimmerman and Kormos 2012). As Sabah is the only State to uniformly implement RIL in Malaysia, it has moved beyond the prevailing practise of CNV at the national level and are positioned to support Malaysia meet their intended nationally determined commitments (NDC) under the UNFCCC (NRE 2015a, b, 2017). The problem is that CNV is no longer practiced in the FMUs in Sabah. Efforts are needed to estimate the impact of CNV and define the carbon baseline relative to RIL under the UNFCCC. This paper investigates the design and application of a carbon baseline under the UNFCCC in Sabah involving CNV practices, relative to RIL. A carbon baseline representing

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FIGURE 1 The differentiation between business-as-usual and crediting carbon baseline. Adapted from: Angelsen 2008

CNV was estimated from the literature and select compartments in active FMUs, consisting of an old growth lower montane, and a lowland severely logged-over dipterocarp forest, were investigated before-, and two- and three-years after harvest, respectively, to better understand the range of anthropogenic disturbance, and carbon storage potential from RIL in Sabah. We hypothesise the forest will maintain higher stocks of carbon after RIL, relative to CNV.

METHODS Carbon baselines can be set at the project, sub-national, national, regional or sector-based level, to estimate practices over the timeframe of the project (Michaelowa et al. 2007, Watson 2009). The creation of a carbon baseline requires knowledge of historical land-use, forestry, and political considerations at the level to which it is estimated, and typically includes the drivers of deforestation, broadly categorised into five underlying forces, i.e., demographic, economic, technological, institutional, and cultural and socio-political factors (Bond et al. 2009). While there are triggers that influence the rate of deforestation in a particular area or region, a carbon baseline must consider the inter-linked causes between individual project- and policy-based scenarios. Critically this process is trying to answer how to begin crediting emission reductions, and over what timeframe (Angelson 2008, Watson 2009). There are three types of carbon baselines: 1) historical, i.e., a reference period set to the average deforestation rate of the past 10-years; 2) business-as-usual, i.e., a counterfactual estimate of the number of carbon emissions that would be released without the activity; and, 3) crediting, i.e., a conservative calculation of the counterfactual estimate (Angelson 2008, Chomitz 2002, Greenglass et al. 2010) (Figure 1). In the case of Sabah, difficulties in obtaining reliable historical information on the impacts of CNV are well documented

(Brookfield and Byron 1990, Kleine 1997, Ong 2006). However even if such information was available, it can only be partially acceptable. This is because commercial timber inventories only measure merchantable trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) greater than 60 cm, whereas carbon inventories typically require the measurement of trees 10 cm DBH (Pearson et al. 2006, RAINFOR 2009, SFD 2009). Secondly as the creation of forest infrastructure under CNV are typically unplanned with little or no location maps, and often in forests that have been harvested multiple times, the extent of forest ‘infrastructure created’ during CNV is unknown, thus making it challenging to determine how much ‘infrastructure created’ was undertaken over a single harvest period (Boltz et al. 2003, CIFOR 2002, Wells 2001). Thirdly, considering the history of CNV and the inconsistency of historical records in Sabah, establishing a carbon baseline based on historical data is redundant (Brookfield and Byron 1990; Ong 2006). Alternatively, it may be possible to use a national carbon baseline, to estimate changes in forest cover in Malaysia, however increasing the estimate spatially will require to take into account a wider variety of scenarios, which will lower accuracy, and may result in an ‘inflated baseline’, damaging the usefulness of what the UNFCCC is attempting to achieve (Angelsen 2008). A carbon baseline for RIL has been developed in the voluntary sector for East and North Kalimantan, Indonesia, however a Sabah-centric approach developed for use under the UNFCCC is required to satisfy national carbon accounting and reporting modalities (UNFCCC 2014, VCS 2016). The business-as-usual (non-crediting) and crediting carbon baseline are comparable with the difference that the crediting baseline reduces the number of credits issued into the market. This can be beneficial in two ways: 1) it provides a conservative estimate of emission reductions, i.e., Decision 11/CP.7 of the UNFCCC, which takes into account policy and/or project-based circumstances that may change over the course of project timeframe, thus adding assurance to the


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FIGURE 2 The accumulation of carbon stocks after CNV under the ‘crediting’ and ‘non-crediting’ trajectories in Sabah, Malaysia. Carbon storage is represented as the difference in carbon stocks between CNV and the ‘threshold of reduced-impact logging’

carbon market that carbon reductions in the marketplace are not excessive; and, 2) it accounts for emission reductions from policies and measures, and non-market processes, i.e., project activities funded by overseas development and multilateral assistance (Angelsen 2008). Applying a crediting baseline is likely more suitable to estimate the carbon baseline for RIL, because it provides a conservative estimate of carbon released into the atmosphere, and can take into account policy and/or project-based circumstances that may change over a project timeframe, including fluctuations in carbon stocks. The limitation of setting a crediting carbon baseline in Sabah While a carbon baseline determines the amount of carbon avoided from entering the atmosphere, there are limitations to the amount of carbon that can be accumulated under the UNFCCC. Relevant to Decision 1/CP.13 of the Bali Action Plan, Parties agreed a programme of work to advance existing climate change mitigation efforts towards the development of long-term adaptation programmes (UNFCCC 2007). The adaptation committee of the UNFCCC was established to oversee the progression of Parties in the adjustment of ecological, social or economic systems, to advance domestic efforts, moderate potential damage to national interests, and capitalise on opportunities associated with climate change. These actions are referred to as ‘adaptation responses to climate change’ (UNFCCC 2011). Unbeknownst to the Sabah Forestry Department (SFD), the mandate of RIL may be

interpreted as an adaptation directive under the UNFCCC, whereby traditional harvest practices are no longer eligible to be practiced in the FMUs, thereby assisting the State to advance domestic efforts to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and capitalise on opportunities associated with the UNFCCC. The foundation of the UNFCCC is based on the premise of balancing carbon emissions with reductions, with Parties under the category of ‘developing’, i.e., Malaysia, only eligible to benefit from mitigation actions until they become adaptation activities, i.e., the permanent implementation of low-carbon strategies (IPCC 2014, UNFCCC 2011). In the case of Sabah, carbon storage benefits can only accrue to current practice, i.e., from CNV to RIL, which we term the ‘carbon threshold of reduced-impact logging’. Outlined in Figure 2, this is represented between points (a), (b), and (c), intersecting at time ‘crediting’, ‘tC’, to represent the point in time in the future, carbon stocks recover after CNV and accumulate to the ‘carbon threshold of reduced-impact logging’. The non-crediting scenario is represented between points (a), (b), and (d), where the intersection at time ‘noncrediting’, ‘tNC’, represents the point in time in the future carbon stocks accumulate to the ‘carbon threshold of reducedimpact logging’. Conditions to set the crediting baseline To propose a carbon baseline representing CNV in the FMUs in Sabah, the following conditions are expected: a) carbon released into the atmosphere from timber harvest activities

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would not be reduced without the implementation of RIL; b) RIL activities do not contribute to the displacement of carbon emissions into other areas as a result of the project, i.e., carbon leakage’ (Schwarze et al. 2002). This is based on the understanding that timber companies in Sabah have a long standing history of operating throughout the State and region, representing that harvesting would occur outside the FMUs regardless of the State government mandate on RIL (Brookfield and Byron 1990, McMorrow and Abdul Talip 2001); c) RIL activities in Sabah will be implemented in perpetuity to represent a permanent reduction of carbon released into the atmosphere (Chomitz 1998, Dutschke 2002, Schlamadinger and Marland 2000, The Star 2010); d) RIL activities are implemented against the Sabah harvest code of harvest practice (SFD 2009), whereby forest inventory, including measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), are undertaken at regular intervals. In carbon accounting terms, this is known as the ‘stock-difference approach’, i.e., repeated inventories of target carbon pools (Wertz-Kanounnikoff and Verchot 2008); e) the above-mentioned conditions are applied against the Malaysian Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL), i.e., Decision 12/CP.17 under the UNFCCC as the performance benchmark to which emission reductions in the forest sector are measured against, whereby Malaysia defines carbon reductions through ‘sustainable forest management’ under Decision 1/CP. 16 in permanent forest estates in Malaysia referred to as FMUs in Sabah (UNFCCC 2011, 2012). Carbon accounting in the FREL of Malaysia is composed of two carbon pools, i.e., aboveground alive tree biomass consisting of alive trees, and belowground biomass consisting of tree roots (NRE 2015a); f) while CNV is documented to take place on inland/hill, peat swamp and mangrove forest types in Sabah (Fox 1968, Nicholson 1958), the majority of timber harvest activities in FMUs are carried out on inland/hill forest, and thus, the carbon baseline is exclusive to inland/hill forest within an FMU; g) the application of the carbon baseline is restricted to logged-over forests within an FMUs, i.e., forest areas with a history of timber harvest activities. This is because the majority of the FMUs in Sabah have a documented history of logging (Brookfield and Byron 1990, McMorrow and Abdul Talip 2001). Constructing the carbon baseline Since the mechanisation of the timber industry in Sabah, research on the impacts of harvest activities on the environment and the improvement of such activities to reduce damage has been conducted (Chai 1975, Fox 1968, Hepburn 1970, Lincoln 2008, Nicholson 1958, Pinard et al. 2000a, Tay 2000). A meta-analysis of published literature was undertaken to estimate the impact of CNV relative to RIL activities. To better understand the difference between CNV and RIL activities, literature that solely measured the impact of either CNV or RIL without offering a comparison, were excluded from analysis. Eight references were identified that focus solely on Sabah. To use the data from the various sources, the

results were standardised through the identification of common carbon pools estimated in each reference. Aboveground alive tree biomass, deadwood necromass, forest litter, belowground carbon, and soil organic carbon, make up the five carbon pools that aggregate forest carbon stocks under the UNFCCC (GOFC-GOLD 2013). Estimates of aboveground alive tree biomass were consistently reported in all papers, however other carbon pools were not, and therefore aboveground alive tree biomass was used as the common denominator. Within the sources, two broad categories of impacts were identified as commonly occurring in this carbon pool: ‘infrastructure created’ and ‘harvest damage’; whereby four sub-categories were attributed to ‘infrastructure created’, i.e., ‘skid trails’, ‘feeder roads’, ‘landings’, and ‘net production area’; and three sub-categories are attributed to ‘harvest damage’; i.e., ‘tree damage’, ‘damage resulting in mortality’, and ‘total stand damage’. While it is known that carbon stocks in soils are a large component of terrestrial carbon in tropical forests, ‘infrastructure created’ is not considered in the category of soil organic carbon, as the carbon content in this pool as a whole does not change from harvest activities, rather only its distribution, whereby the changes in distribution are difficult to determine, relative to their variability over a harvest cycle (Clarke and Walsh 2006, Djomo et al. 2011, Johnson et al. 1991, Lincoln 2008, Nussbaum et al. 1995, Pinard 1995). To estimate the average percentage difference between the practices in each source and within each sub-category, the impact value from RIL activities were deducted from the impact value from CNV activities, and the result divided by the impact value of CNV activities and multiplied by 100. With this formulation, when impact values from RIL are identical to impact values from CNV activities, the percentage difference between the two is 0%. Conversely, when the impact value from RIL is zero relative to the impact value from CNV activities, the percentage difference between the two is 100%. For estimates already in percentage format, values for RIL were subtracted from the values for CNV activities. In the sources, it was common to report ‘infrastructure created’ as a singular numerical value, for many, or all of the four sub-categories, without being broken down into sub-categories. Instead of placing the same value several times in each sub-category and to avoid artificially altering the average percentage difference, the singular numerical value is treated as one value across all sub-categories. Similarly, for ‘harvest damage’, it was common for a single source to report values in more than one sub-category. Since the approach results in a net deduction of carbon stock, i.e., mortality, it is appropriate to only select a single value from each source. This resulted in the definition of a hierarchical structure to reporting ‘harvest damage’ from the three subcategories. In the first instance, studies reporting ‘damage resulting in mortality’ were always used. Secondly for sources that reported ‘total stand damage’ and ‘tree damage’ in the same source, the value of ‘total stand damage’ is used. This is because it cannot be confirmed that ‘tree damage’ directly results in tree mortality, whereas the ‘total stand


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TABLE 1 Summary of analysis of the relative impacts on ecosystem carbon pools caused by CNV vs. RIL practices Infrastructure created (%) Harvest damage Time of Total Damage Net Forest area post-harvest Skid Feeder Tree stand resulting in Landings production measurement trails roads damage mortality damage area

#

Research study

1

Putz and Pinard 1993

2

Pinard 1995

Ulu Segama

1 year

3

Pinard and Putz 1996

Ulu Segama

1 year

4

Pinard and Cropper 2000 Ulu Segama

5

Pinard et al. 2000

6

Ulu Segama

Simulation

27.00 9.80

43.00 44.00

Simulation

20.00

Ulu Segama

7 years

9.80

Lohuji and Martin 2001

Deramakot

< 5 years

7

Huth and Ditzer 2001

Deramakot

Simulation

30.00

8

Lincoln 2008

Ulu Segama

12 years

30.00

Average

damage’ incorporates considerable elements of mortality. Thirdly for those sources that did not specifically report ‘damage resulting in mortality’, or ‘total stand damage’, the subcategory ‘tree damage’ was applied to represent mortality. The resulting percentage difference for the two categories of ‘infrastructure created’ and ‘harvest damage’ is represented in Table 1. Values used to generate the estimate in Table 1 can be found in Table A: Supplementary information. Forest inventory practices in Sabah are similar to the ‘stock-difference approach’ for carbon estimation under the UNFCCC, i.e., the periodic measurement of trees over time (GOFC-GOLD 2013, Wertz-Kanounnikoff and Verchot 2008). To apply the literature and estimate carbon stocks after CNV activities, the percentage difference for the categories ‘infrastructure created’ and ‘harvest damage’ are multiplied by the post-harvest carbon estimate from RIL activities. This is because CNV is no longer practiced and we needed to aggregate the impact of CNV practices from the estimate of RIL. As the difference between CNV and RIL are represented as the percentage difference of the two identified categories, i.e., ‘infrastructure created’ and ‘harvest damage’, it is possible to apply the baseline to the RIL estimate of both the volume (m3 ha–1), and carbon (tC ha–1) variable of aboveground alive tree biomass (Eq.1), represented by the values 0.83 and 0.64, respectively (Table 1). The confidence intervals (CI) for ‘infrastructure created’ and ‘harvest damage’ were calculated by estimating the standard error of each category at the 95% confidence interval (Gujarati 2006) (Eq.2). As project-based carbon accounting estimates are intended to be more accurate than national-based estimates (IPCC 2014), we believe it would be irresponsible not to estimate deadwood necromass from CNV activities. This is because timber harvest activities accrue large amounts of debris and waste, and not estimating the carbon pool would make the underlying principle of RIL redundant (Pinard and Putz 1996). A deadwood necromass function of aboveground alive tree biomass of 33% is applied, with a decay rate of 50% in biomass annually, to simulate the

20.00 50.00

16.65 ± 8.97

36.17 ± 8.95

decay of the harvest debris over the recovery period (Lincoln 2008, Pinard and Cropper 2000) (Eq.3). AGC = x * 0.83 * 0.64

(Eq.1)

Where: AGC = Post-harvest estimate of aboveground carbon stocks from CNV practices. x = Post-harvest estimate of carbon stocks from RIL practices. C=

( x * a) + ( y * b ) x+y

(Eq.2)

C = Confidence interval of the percentage difference. x = Percentage difference ‘infrastructure created’. y = Percentage difference ‘harvest damage’. a = Standard error of ‘infrastructure created’. b = Standard error of ‘harvest damage’. DWC =AGC * a * b

(Eq.3)

DWC = Post-harvest estimate of deadwood necromass carbon stocks from CNV practices. AGC = Post-harvest estimate of aboveground carbon from CNV practices. a = Deadwood necromass function of aboveground alive tree biomass of 0.67 (33%). b = Deadwood necromass decay rate of 0.50 in biomass annually (50%). Estimating the trajectory of carbon stock accumulation for the crediting baseline The principle of net present value (NPV) is modified for the forward-looking carbon baseline, to conservatively estimate the accumulation of carbon stock over time. The principle behind NPV, under a typical ‘financial application’, is to adjust the price of goods and services, such that its future estimated worth can be established in its present value, i.e., to adjust for the rate of inflation over a period of time (Gujarati 2006). In essence, carbon is treated the same as money and

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discounted to adjust for the variability in its accumulation over time. The method can adjust for unforeseen circumstances, i.e., risk, which can affect the quantity of carbon entering the marketplace. NPV is a known technique to forecast benefits in situations where variability is subject to external influences, yet its use to estimate carbon stocks is limited (Boscolo et al. 1997, 1998, Kim et al. 2008, Richards 1997, Van Kooten et al. 2004). To determine the rate of growth after CNV activities, a review of the literature was undertaken similar to the exercise to determine the amount of damage from CNV activities. Limited work was uncovered that estimated the accumulation of carbon after CNV activities over time. Seven sources were identified with the average rate of carbon stock accumulation of 1.02 tC ha–1 yr–1 across the sources, representing recovery timeframes ranging from 16-60-years (Kira 1987, Lasco et al. 2006, Lincoln 2008, Pinard 1995, Pinard and Putz 1997, Tay 2000, West et al. 2014). Applying this value creates a linear forward projection of carbon accumulation, to represent the average growth over time and averaging uneven annual increments. The crediting scenario is represented in Figure 2 between points (a), (b), (c), and the non-crediting scenario is represented between points (a), (b), (d). ‘Non-crediting’ carbon storage is estimated by calculating the difference in carbon stocks between CNV and RIL practices, multiplied by the rate of the accumulation of carbon on an annual basis (Eq.4). NCs = x – (CHcarbon * rca)

(Eq.4)

NCs = Non-crediting storage. x = Post-RIL estimate of carbon stock. CHcarbon = Post-harvest estimate of carbon stock from CNV, i.e., sum of Eq.1 (AGC) and Eq.3 (DWC). rca = Rate of carbon accumulation, i.e., 1.02 tC ha–1 yr–1. To estimate the ‘crediting trajectory’ and apply the principle of NPV, the value of accumulation of carbon stocks over the post-harvest timeframe after CNV activities is considered as the discount value (Eq.5). Discounting carbon is estimated annually, where the ‘non-crediting’ estimate is multiplied by the discount rate and subtracted from the estimate of carbon from RIL activities (Eq.6). To estimate the ‘crediting’ scenario, the difference between the ‘non-crediting’ and ‘crediting’ scenario is subtracted from the ‘non-crediting’ scenario to simulate the conservative estimate of the crediting carbon baseline (Eq.7). D = 1/(1+r)t

(Eq.5)

D = Discount factor. r = Rate of carbon accumulation after CNV activities. t = Number of years post-harvest. DCs = x – (NCs * D) DCs = Discounted carbon storage. x = Post-RIL estimate of carbon stock. NCs = Non-crediting storage. D = Discount factor.

(Eq.6)

CRs = NCs – (DCs – NCs)

(Eq.7)

CRs = Crediting carbon storage. NCs = Non-crediting storage. DCs = Discounted carbon storage.

ESTIMATING CARBON STORAGE FROM REDUCED-IMPACT LOGGING We investigate the carbon storage potential of RIL in two concessions in Sabah with varied historical harvest intensities. The stock-difference method of carbon accounting was undertaken in two FMUs in Sabah, believed to represent opposite ends of a range of anthropogenic disturbances from RIL harvest activities to estimate carbon stocks both pre- and post-harvest, where we define their status in relation to human intervention since the mechanisation of the timber industry in Sabah in the 1950s (Galante et al. 2012). At one end of the gradient, an old growth forest with no previous history of timber harvest activities, representing the last remaining commercial upper dipterocarp old growth forest, and the opposite gradient, a severely degraded logged-over dipterocarp forest with an extended history of repeated CNV activities designated for conversion to a timber plantation. Lower Montane forest The last remaining undisturbed forest designated for commercial timber production in Sabah is located within FMU 7 that totals 289,000 ha and is situated on the south-western tip of the State (Figure 3). The FMU was established in 1983 for the development of commercial plantation operations from old growth forest, consisting of clearing and replanting activities. Over time compartments were allocated for Natural Forest Management (NFM) activities (104,822 ha), whereby only RIL is eligible to be practiced. The NFM area is dominated by dipterocarp forest, ranging between 400–1,800 m above sea level (asl), and receiving over 300 mm in rainfall per month. Geologically, it is composed of sandstone and shale, with soils tending to be acidic and low in nutritional status, with very shallow A-horizons, where the soils are affected by sharp geographic features, as characterised by areas of steep undulating sandstone. Due to the elevations, the temperatures range between 25–30°C, and reduces to as low as 18°C in the evenings. Three main forest types are found in the NFM area: 1) mixed dipterocarp forest, 0–900 m asl; 2) lower montane forest, 900–1,800 m asl; and 3) upper montane forest, >1,800 m asl. The majority of the NFM area comprises of lower montane forest, dominated by dipterocarp species at lower levels, and by conifers such as Agathis species at higher levels (Sabah State Government 1996, SFD 2009, SFI 2011). This research represents the first entry in select compartments of the NFM area, whereby two compartments are investigated; one not harvested, and the other harvested using RIL practices, to represent the pre- and post-harvest condition of the forest, respectively. The concessionaire intended to harvest a new compartment to estimate the pre- and post-harvest


65

FIGURE 3 Map of Sabah, the location of the lower montane forest and the research compartments highlighted in purple. Adapted from SFI (2011)

conditions in a single compartment, however for various reasons the plan was abandoned. Alternatively, we identified the compartment harvested closest to the introduction of the RIL policy in the year 2010. Compartment 56C consisting of 1,518 ha of undisturbed lower montane forest was identified as harvested in 2009 against the RIL guideline and 71 m3 ha–1 were extracted (SFD 2009). The compartment underwent post-harvest silvicultural treatment, i.e., climber cutting in 2010, and the post-harvest data was collected in 2012, i.e., three years after harvest. To identify the compartment not harvested, considerations related to homogeneity of the harvested compartment relative to the remaining NFM area of undisturbed forest needed to be addressed. Compartment data were analysed relative to the latest concession-wide inventory carried out for the first Forest Management Plan (FMP) completed in the year 2000. The adjacent area, Compartment 56D comprising of 333 ha, was identified to be within the variability range to the average stocking and volume of the undisturbed forest, and similar in terms of geographical and topographical components, soil type, and species

composition (SFI 2000, 2009, 2011, 2012) (Table B: Supplementary information). Lowland mixed Dipterocarp forest To identify the forest area to represent the opposite end of the gradient of disturbance, i.e., severely logged-over forest, the histories of the FMUs in Sabah were examined, where FMU 14, consisting of 95,300 ha was identified as the most recent FMU severely impacted by CNV activities (Figure 4). The main difference distinguishing this FMU was the recent seizure and issuance of 29 short-term licenses by the government for CNV activities between 1999–2001 (SPT 2004). This FMU is considered as the most recent to be influenced by excessive unregulated harvest activities and is thought to be representative of severely degraded logged-over forest conditions in Sabah. After its return to the license holder in 2002, the FMU was barred from future harvest activities by the SFD until the stocking density reached the thresholds for RIL activities (SFD 2009). This resulted in the ‘special

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M.V. Galante et al.

FIGURE 4 Map of Sabah, the location of the lowland mixed dipterocarp forest and the research compartments highlighted in purple. Adapted from Sapulut (2010a, b)

allocation’ of forests with poor stocking to be reclassified for plantation activities (27,736 ha), where the management may convert into plantations using clear felling techniques. Nevertheless, the FMU applied a variation of RIL instead, whereby trees 35 cm DBH were harvested using aspects of RIL techniques, i.e. selective harvesting, directional felling, and long cable winching, and thereafter undertaking line planting with native dipterocarp species to support regeneration of the residual forest. In the strict sense, RIL cannot be implemented in a plantation context as the area does not meet the stocking and diameter requirements of the Sabah code of practice (SFD 2009). However, as harvesting only involves trees 35 cm DBH, there should be residual forest that we consider to be representative of the higher end of impact from RIL activities. The concession itself was established in 1997 and is located in south-central Sabah. Temperatures range between 22° and 31°C and the area receives on average 214 mm of rain per month. Geologically the FMU is comprised of mudstone,

sandstone, siltstone, minor limestone and ignite, and the sandy soils are relatively infertile, comprised mainly of orthic acrisol. The FMU contains an upper elevation of 750m asl with limited slopes >30°, characterised by lowland mixed dipterocarp forest. Due to the history of extensive harvest activities, the stand volume and species composition are highly variable across sites. Similar to the lower montane forest, a compartment for harvesting was initially identified however the plan was abandoned by the concessionaire, and again, the most recent compartment harvested from the inception of the RIL policy was considered. Compartment 197 (A&B) was identified consisting of 361 ha, where 188 m3 ha–1 were harvested in 2010. Regenerative line planting with native dipterocarp species was completed 12-months after harvest in early 2011. Post-harvest data were collected in 2012, i.e., 2 years after harvest. For homogeneity to the non-harvested compartment, the compartment data were analysed relative to the concession-wide inventory carried out for the development of the


67

TABLE 2 Net Production Area compartment register of the old growth and severely logged over forest Forest type Item

Lower montane forest (ha)

Lowland mixed forest (ha)

Old growth forest

Severely degraded logged-over forest

Gradient of disturbance Compartment label Timeframe

56D

56C

209A

197A&B

Pre-harvest

Post-harvest

Pre-harvest

Post-harvest

Gross production area Unlogged area

1,184.83

535.00

360.50

99.07

618.53

171.40

0.00

*

Main roads (10 m width)

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

*

Feeder roads (8 m width)

3.10

4.83

4.08

3.56

*

Skid trails (5 m width)

5.66

4.96

19.31

12.11

*

Landings (0.18 ha each)

0.06

0.36

0.54

0.72

233.75

556.14

339.68

344.10

Net production area *

332.82

The pre-harvest forest infrastructure data originates from the approved Forest Management Plan by the Sabah Forestry Department.

first FMP completed in 1999 (SPT 2004, 2010c). It must be noted that the data used in the FMP was recorded prior to the seizure and issuance of the 29 short-term licenses, and there may be systematic differences relative to the data from the FMP. The adjacent compartment of 209A, consisting of 535 ha was within the variability range of the average stocking and volume of the remaining severely degraded logged-over forest, and is similar in terms of geographical and topographical conditions, soil type and species composition (Table B: Supplementary information). In both the lower montane and lowland mixed dipterocarp forest, the FMPs were created by estimating trees 20 cm DBH, and for comparability, we followed the DBH range for this research. Net production area To ensure only the areas impacted by harvest activities were compared, it was necessary to standardise the area influenced by timber harvest activities in each compartment. We utilised the total compartment area, termed the ‘Gross Production Area’ (GPA), and subtracted areas prohibited from harvesting and planned/existing forest infrastructure. We refer to the final area affected by harvest activities as the ‘Net Production Area’ (NPA) (Table 2). Harvest maps were revised using ArcGIS software, version 20 (ESRI 1996, SFD 2009, SFI 2009, 2012, SPT 2010 a, b, c). Sample plots establishment Existing forestry inventory data were used to determine the required number of sample plots per compartment (unpublished). Pre-harvest data was collected by establishing six 0.50 ha rectangular sample plots in each compartment, randomly distributed along evenly spaced transects within the NPA. The lack of immediate harvest activities altered the initial approach to measure post-harvest damage, and postharvest data was estimated by establishing 30 circular nested sample plots randomly distributed along evenly spaced

transects within the NPA of each compartment, each consisting of 20, 10 and 5m radius, representing 0.12, 0.03 and 0.008 ha, respectively. The intention of this design was to capture the spatial variability of harvest impacts across the NPA. Both pre- and post-harvest plots were established to obtain an average 10% error at 95% confidence interval to the average carbon density per hectare. The coordinates of each sample plot were determined through ArcGIS software (ESRI 1996). Measured variables Pre-harvest data was collected by measuring: a) aboveground alive tree biomass - consisting of trees 20cm DBH; and b) deadwood necromass - consisting of standing dead trees, tree stumps and lying dead wood 2cm diameter. Trees and deadwood were identified to the species level if possible, tagged and the diameter, height/length, and cavity (if present) recorded (Metcalfe et al. 2009, Pearson et al. 2006). We are aware of the limitation of our inability to measure the entire cavity of deadwood and understand a more thorough cross-sectional method is needed to increase the accuracy of measurement, yet we believe our method is justified for a conservative estimate (Creed et al. 2004, Fraver et al. 2007, Hérault et al. 2010). To determine the stage of decay of deadwood, the ‘knife test’ was performed to determine if the wood was sound, intermediate, or rotten (Pearson et al. 2006). Post-harvest data was collected by measuring aboveground alive tree biomass in the respective nested plots, with tree diameters of 20–29, 30–59 and 60cm DBH associated to 5, 10 and 20m radius, respectively, and the deadwood procedure was implemented in the 20m plot exclusively. General linear model (Y = a + β1X1 + E) was applied, where (Y) is a vector of measurements to examine the change in the dependent variables, i.e., aboveground alive tree biomass, and deadwood necromass, with the independent variable being the categorical variable compartments (X), and (E) being the error to the average carbon density per hectare (theoretically 10%). To meet the assumptions of the statistical

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inference that is applied, the square root function (Sqrt) was used to transform the number of trees, and the logarithm base 10 function (Log10), used to transform basal area, volume and carbon, and the arcsine function (ArcSin) used to transform canopy density. The reported values are the back-transformed estimates of the fixed effects variables, along with the average of the upper and lower 95% confidence intervals. All variables are represented as the means per hectare: Number of trees (# of Trees, # ha–1); basal area (BA, m2 ha–1); volume (Vol, m3 ha–1); and, carbon (tC, tC ha–1). All statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS software version 20 (IBM Corp 2011). Aboveground volume was calculated using 12 functional group-specific tree allometric equations developed for the local Lahad Datu district of Sabah, Malaysia (Forestal International Limited 1973). Tonnes of total aboveground dry biomass were estimated from the calculated volumes by attributing a species-specific wood density (World Agroforestry Centre 2014). For unidentified species, a conservative mean wood density of 0.50 g cm3 was applied. The generic biomass expansion factor for superior hill forest in Malaysia (1.833), defined by Brown et al. (1989) as a sub-unit of moisttropical forest, was used for both the lower montane and the lowland mixed dipterocarp forest because of its representative basal area, i.e., 32.40 m2 ha–1 for trees >15 cm DBH, that closely matched those of the non-transformed pre-harvest basal area for trees 20 cm DBH in the lower montane and lowland mixed dipterocarp forest, i.e., 31.52 and 31.72 m2 ha–1, respectively. Volume was multiplied by the wood density estimate and the biomass expansion factor. The biomass expansion factor is defined as the ratio of total aboveground biomass to commercial stem biomass (Levy et al. 2004). A regression equation developed by Reyes et al. (1992), was applied to convert wood densities determined at 12% moisture content to oven-dry weight, as wood densities are typically represented as oven-dry weight (GOFC-GOLD 2013). A carbon factor of 0.50 was used to convert biomass into tonnes of carbon (Brown 1997). Carbon densities of deadwood necromass, categorised as sound, intermediate and rotten, were multiplied by 1, 0.5 and 0.25, respectively, to represent reductions in carbon of 0, 50 and 75%, respectively (Chambers et al. 2000). We applied the crediting baseline methodology to both the lower montane and lowland mixed dipterocarp forest to estimate carbon stocks after the implementation of CNV activities. To represent the upper end of anthropogenic impacts from timber harvest activities in the ‘RIL plantation’ scenario in the lowland mixed dipterocarp forest, a further 65% was deducted from the estimate of aboveground alive tree biomass to account for harvesting that would have occurred under CNV. This is because there is a documented history of harvesting and abandoning areas under the context of plantation development, and the repeated harvest of commercial production forests over short timeframes, resulting in severely degraded conditions (Fox 1972, Mannan and Awang 1997, McMorrow and Talip 2001, SFD 1989).

RESULTS Lower Montane forest Significant change over time was detected in all aboveground alive tree biomass variables (p