Social Forestry in Latin America – A First Overview of the Issues
Contents
1. 3 2 3 Multiple Use Management of Forest Resources Multiple use management of forest resources is being promoted as a means to reduce the de pendence on a single or a limited number of products and to ensure a more steady flow of benefits In the countries visited there are at tempts to combine the extraction of an in creasing number of timber species with locally specific NTFP or with eco tourism However in The technical details are described at length in the lit erature and will not be dealt with here 12 See Ford Foundation 1998 on experiences in Asia practice this is often complicated by the trade offs involved in many combinations of forest products In Honduras for example where GTZ sup ported projects promote multiple use forest management in comparatively simple pine forests Uebelh r 1998 there may be conflicts between resin tapping and timber harvesting concerning use rights harvesting schedules and physical impact The Plan Piloto Forestal in Mexico broadleaf forest concluded that the is sue is not the maximization of the number of forest products used i e increase in total yields but rather their optimal combination to achieve synergies enhancing forest area maintenance Janka 1998 Eco tourism in at least one case in Mexico and another in Costa Rica made the communities cancel previously established logging plans since tourists prefer to see undisturbed forest It remains to be seen whi2. Bundesministerium f r Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung Bonn Germany Proyecto de Manejo Forestal Sostenible Santa Cruz Bolivia USAID BOSAWAS Biosphere Reserve Support Project Nicaragua GTZ Biodiversity Support Project Washington Centro Agron mico Tropical de Investigaci n y Ensenanza Turrialba Costa Rica Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Econ mica y Social Cochabamba Bolivia Conservation International Washington Coordinadora Ind gena Campesina de Agroforester a Comunitaria Centroamericana Central Intercomunal Campesina del Oriente de Lomer o Bolivia supported by APCOB BOLFOR Canadian International Development Agency Center for International Forestry Research Bogor Indonesia Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species Cooperativa Regional Agroforestal Col n Atl ntida Limitada La Ceiba Honduras Comisi n de Desarrollo Forestal de San Carlos Costa Rica Cooperativa Forestal Y nesha Limitada Peru supported by USAID later WWF Coordinadora Ind gena de la Amazon a Peruana Lima Peru Consejo Nacional de Areas Protegidas Guatemala Corporaci n Nacional de Investigaci n y Fomento Forestal Bogot Colombia Cooperaci n en los Sectores Forestal y Maderero Costa Rica GTZ Common property management regimes Cultural Survival Cambridge Mass USA Community timber production Department for International Development Estudios Rurales y Asesor a Oaxaca Mexico Fo
3. sitions Non Governmental Organisations and Political Economic Change in the Andean Re gion London ODI AGREN Network Paper 76 July 1997 Bodmer Richard E John F Eisenberg and Kent H Redford 1997 Hunting and the Like linood of Extinction of Amazonian Mammals Conservation Biology 11 2 460 466 Bird Pippa 1997 Funder or founder the role of development agencies in shared forest man agement Commonwealth Forestry Review 76 3 179 181 BMZ 1992 Sektorkonzept Tropenwald Bonn BMZ Aktuell 14 BMZ 1996 Hauptbericht zur Serien Evaluierung Untersuchung von Tr germodellen in Entwicklungsvorhaben zur Bewirtschaftung forstlicher Ressourcen Phase Ecuador und Costa Rica Bonn BMZ Referat 201 BMZ 1997 Hauptbericht zur Serienevaluierung Tr germodelle in Projekten der nachhaltigen Bewirtschaftung nat rlicher Ressourcen Teil maBnahme Mexiko Dominikanische Republic Bonn BMZ Bryant Dirk Daniel Nielsen and Laura Tangley 1997 The Last Frontier Forests Ecosystem amp Economies on the Edge Washington WRI Cabarle Bruce J 1991 Community Forestry and the Social Ecology of Development Grass roots Development 15 3 3 9 Camino Ronnie de and Marielos Alfaro 1998 Certification in Latin America Experience To Date London ODI Rural Development Forestry Network Paper 23c Carney Diana and John Farrington 1998 Natu ral Resource Management and Institutional Change London and New York Routledge
4. The Search for Balance between Socioeconomic and Ecolocial Sustainability In Freese 1997 93 131 Kipla Sait Tasbaika Plan de Manejo Territorial Ind gena Pueblo Ind gena Mayangna y Miskitu del r o Lakus Ritha Mariso Rivas Garc a et al eds 1997 Managua TNC Nicaragua Serie Documentos del Proyecto Bosawas No 8 one of 5 such plans Land Tenure Center LTC Institute for Envi ronmental Studies IES 1995 Case Studies of Community Based Forestry Enterprises in the Americas Madison Wisconsin University of Wisconsin MAFOR Proyecto Manejo y Utilizaci n Sostenida de Bosques de Coniferas en Wald Info 24 Honduras 1996 Informe Ejecutivo 1992 1995 Tegucigalpa COHDEFOR MAFOR FINNIDA Maginnis Stewart Jhonny A M ndez Gamboa and Jonathan Davies 1998 Manual para el manejo de bloques pequenos de bosque h medo tropical con especial referencia a la Zona Norte de Costa Rica no place DFID CODEFORSA Manual de Capacitaci n y Aplicaci n An lisis de G nero y Desarrollo Forestal n d Guatemala City Proyecto GCP GUA 007 NET based on 1995 FTPP Manual Markopoulos Matthew 1998 The impacts of certification on community forest enterprises a case study of the Lomer o Community Forest Management Project Bolivia London lED Forestry and Land Use Series No 13 M ndez Gamboa Jhonny A n d Determi naci n de la rentabilidad del manejo del bosque natural en la zona norte de Costa Rica en fin
5. amp CCT JUNAFORCA Wald Info 24 Appendix 1 MOST IMPORTANT PROJECTS amp INSTITUTIONS VISITED Forestry General Social Forestr Protected Areas E Eo MO a Plan e Quintana Roo CATIE OLAFO amp CONAP Centro Maya AFH GTZ PSF amp GTZ AFOCO CIDA PDBL MOPAWI al Subprojects COATLAHL FINNIDA a CAFOR Po dT Z BOSAWAS Costa Rica CATIE various projects CODEFORSA FAO FTPP JUNAFORCA A R E a Ambiente Ecuador GTZ PPF GTZ PROFORS FAO GTZ Gran Sumaco FTPP e C mara Forestal FAO FTPP COICAP GTZ Protected Areas WWF Pro Naturaleza CI Bolivia Superintendencia FAO FTPP CERES GTZ Protected Areas Cl Forestal USAID APCOB Eco Bolivia BOLFOR ITTO GTZ PDTC IMAZON Projeto Saude e Alegria GTZ IBAMA Fundacao Santar m GTZ FUNAI Vitoria Amazonas Wald Info 24 Abbr Acr AFE COHDEFOR AFH AFOCO AMA APCOB ASL BMZ BOLFOR BOSAWAS BSP CATIE CERES Cl CICAFOC CICOL CIDA CIFOR CITES COATLAHL CODEFORSA COFYAL COICAP CONAP CONIF COSEFORMA CPMR CS CTP DfID ERA FAO FINNIDA FLONA FOIN FSC FTPP LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS Explanation Administraci n Forestal del Estado Corporaci n Hondurena de Desarrollo Forestal Honduras Agenda Forestal Hondurena Apoyo a la Forester a Comunal Honduras GTZ Acuerdo Mexicano Alem n Mexico GTZ Ayuda para el Campesinado Ind gena del Oriente Boliviano Santa Cruz Bolivia Agrupaci n Social del Lugar Bolivia
6. 1996 La Paz CIFOR CEDLA TIERRA PROMAB Serie Bosques y Sociedad No 1 PDBL BFDP 1995 Broadleaf Forest Devel opment Project Final Report 1988 1995 La Ceiba Honduras PDBL Poats Susan V Paulina Arroyo and Rodolfo Asar eds 1998 G nero y manejo sustentable de recursos examinando los resultados Memorios conferencia internacional de MERGE Quito febrero de 1996 Poirier Jacques 1998 Documento de Referen cia Primera Reuni n Comisi n Interinstitu cional del Fondo de Manejo Forestal Regi n Forestal Atlantida Bosques Latifoliados Nacionales Bajo Usufructo No place PDBL Pretzsch J rgen J rgen Hess et al 1992 Bestandsaufnahme und Auswertung von Monitoring Ans tzen und Instrumenten f r die Durchf hrung von RM SH Projekten unter besonderer Ber cksichtigung forstlicher Vorha ben Freiburg Institut f r Forsteinrichtung und Forstliche Betriebswirtschaft der Fakult t Freiburg unpublished report for GTZ Pretzsch J rgen Ren F rster und J rgen Hess 1993 ProzeBanalyse von drei Forst projekten in Guatemala Honduras und Mexiko Eine Erfahrungsaufarbeitung Wald Info 10 13 16 Wald Info 24 Primack Richard B David Bray Hugo A Galetti and Ismael Ponciano eds 1998 Tim ber Tourists and Temples Conservation and Development in the Maya Forest of Belize Guatemala and Mexico Washington DC Island Press Reconocimiento y Demarcaci n de Territorios Ind genas en la Amazon a
7. America 1 The Between late July and mid December 1998 visited not only GTZ supported forestry and conservation organizations and projects in the USA Mexico Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Costa Rica Colombia Ecuador Peru Bolivia and Brazil see Ap pendix 1 some information on the countries visited in Appendix 2 The study tour was preceded and ac companied by an extensive literature review would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody met once again for sharing their precious time and infor mation with me Notes on each country including bib Wald Info 24 focus was on community or smallholder man agement of natural humid sub tropical forests for commercial timber extraction The idea for the study arose from first hand experiences in the rather difficult circumstances of South East Asia especially Indonesia 2 The study tour was conducted to contribute to our understanding of social forestry and provide a basis for improv ing GTZ services in this field The three broad questions pursued were 1 Is sustainable management of these forests economically viable in Latin America given that the density of commercial timber spe cies is even less than in South East Asia The success of social forestry obviously hinges on the feasibility of sustainable forest management in general 2 Which experiences have been made with different types of social forestry especially with regard to institutional arrange
8. La Experiencia de los Pa ses de la Regi n 1993 Bogot Fun daci n GAIA amp CEREC Reuter M Chr Schulz and C Marrufo 1998 Manual T cnico Forestal Informaci n B sica M todos y Procedimientos in print Richards E M 1993 Lessons from Participa tory Natural Forest Management in Latin America Case Studies from Honduras Mexico and Peru Journal of World Forest Resource Management 7 1 1 25 Richards Michael 1994 A Review of Recent Institutional Change in the Forest Sector in Latin America London ODI Rural Develop ment Forestry Network unpublished manu script Richards Michael et al 1996 Decentralising Forest Management and Conservation in Cen tral America London ODI Working Paper 93 Richards Michael 1997a Tragedy of the Commons for Community Based Forest Man agement in Latin America London ODI Natu ral Resource Perspective No 22 Sept 1997 Richards Michael 1997b Common Property Resource Institutions and Forest Management in Latin America Development and Change 28 95 117 Richards Michael 1998 Institutional and Economic Issues in the Promotion of Com mercial Forest Management Models among Amerindian Societies London ODI unpub lished paper Salafsky Nick et al 1997 98 Chainsaws as a Tool for Conservation A Comparison of Com munity based Timber Production Enterprises in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia ODI London Rural Development Forestry Network Network
9. The Nature Conservancy and the GTZ supported BOSAWAS protected area management proj ect have supported the demarcation and par ticipatory management planning in five indige nous territories which constitute the core of the reserve In countries like Honduras and Guatemala most forest areas are still classified as state forests Here arrangements like usufruct contracts Honduras or community forestry conces sions in the multiple use zone or buffer zone of the Maya Biosphere Reserve Pet n Guatemala provide local people with some tenure security albeit no recognition of land rights In Honduras under the Sistema Social ForestaF from the mid 1970s on cooperatives and community groups could obtain annually renewable harvest rights to pine resin and tim ber later in the context of 40 year contracts In 1993 this system covered an area of 548 000 ha mainly of pine forests managed by 311 groups Ochoa 1995 In Guatemala since 1994 communities in the Maya Biosphere Re serve the oldest of which were founded around the turn of the century by chicleros latex gatherers have been given the possi bility to apply for concessions for the commer cial use of timber and non timber forest prod ucts Another interesting type of forest management unit in both countries are municipal forests bosques ejidales which may gain more im portance elsewhere in Latin America in the pro cess of decentralization Thes
10. an activity best left to the domes tic unit ibd 208 Others argue that in view of the unavoidably increasing market integration also in remote areas it is necessary to antici pate its potential negative effects and strengthen grassroots organizations in proc essing and marketing focusing on already indi vidualized areas of the indigenous economy Richards 1998 In any case the more isolated and less market integrated the people among whom a forest enterprise will be established are the more problems can be expected and need to be anticipated with regard to business management Another issue is the user group approach pur sued or at least permitted in several countries In Asian countries like Nepal or India it has proven to be more practical to work with the immediate traditional users of forest resources instead of government imposed territorial units In Latin American countries like Honduras or Bolivia in contrast where the formation of groups is promoted to gain access to new for est areas the distribution of benefits from forest management among all inhabitants of a certain forest area and municipality becomes an issue If the process of group formation is not guided by certain criteria and monitored it can lead to the exclusion of a large part of the population This may be desirable for business manage ment purposes but its social acceptability should at least be discussed in each particular case User groups
11. land use arrangements along which communities are continually evolving in one direction or another Richards 1997a 1 are an open question e Longer established indigenous CPMRs are affected by increasing market integration and centralized tenure legislation although this does not necessarily lead to their demise e More recently created CPMRs both among indigenous and non indigenous people may face even more social legal institutional economic and technical problems In Costa Rica most forest outside of small in digenous areas is in private hands This creates a different type of challenge for social forestry which also applies for smallholder set tlements and cooperatives in many Latin American forest frontier areas The experiences gained in GTZ supported projects in Costa Rica Guatemala and Ecuador and recent de velopments in Brazil indicate that smallholder forest management for commercial purposes can be viable from about 40 ha on Brazil 20 30 ha Costa Rica or even under 20 ha Ecuador if administrative and technical re quirements are simplified In the GTZ sup ported PROFORS project in Sucumb os Ecuador the focus is on enrichment planting on individual plots farmers receive support for max 4 ha Timber harvest has not started yet but predictions of future profits are quite high Forest management plans have also been es tablished for smallholder cooperatives consist ing of individually owned
12. or operated plots but there is much variation in labor organization i e in what is done individually and what collec tively No systematic comparison and assess ment of the different organizational options seems to exist yet In one Guatemalan case for example standing timber is sold individually by all cooperative members to the same trader at a jointly negotiated price In other cases at tempts are made to add value through coop erative run timber extraction and processing see 3 2 2 below 3 2 Forest Management 3 2 1 Non Timber Forest Products After the murder of rubber tapper leader Chico Mendes in Brazil in late 1988 extractive re serves an official land use category in Brazil but also relevant as community concessions in state forest areas elsewhere received much scientific and public attention By now how ever major ecological and economic limitations of a dependence on non timber forest product NTFP extraction have been recognized threats of overharvesting in boom periods price decline due to oversupply substitution by other products all ultimately resulting in the poverty of extractors There seem to be inherent limitations in NTFP based social forestry since in natural forests these resources are either of high commercial value but low abundance or the other way round This makes it difficult to establish so cially economically and ecologically sustain able enterprises Salafsky 1997 98 A
13. system of payments for environmental services Pagos para Servicios Ambientales such as CO sinks water biodiversity and natural beauty These payments are not only for reforestation but also for natural forest management and forest protection by smallholders In Honduras the FINNIDA supported MAFOR project has experimented with a Fondo de Manejo Forestal at municipal level MAFOR 1996 The CIDA supported Broadleaf Forest Development Project PDBL has done the same at regional level at the Atlantic coast contributions from the forest agency municipalities producer groups and private sector for those forest 4 For details of the system see Heindrichs 1997 and Watson et al 1998 Wald Info 24 management costs which producer groups are unable to cover PDBL 1995 Poirier 1998 3 Key Issues in Social Forestry 3 1 Land Tenure In Latin American forest areas as all over the tropics addressing land tenure conflicts is a major issue in SFM and a precondition for de veloping social forestry In most countries these problems remain unsolved An exception is Mexico where since the Revolution indigenous communities have had their land ownership at least in theory recognized and settler com munities in frontier areas like Yucatan were given large forest areas as ejidos in common property However contrary to Africa and Asia the Amazon has seen an impressive process of indigenous mobilization since the 1960s
14. there should be more systematic selec tion of countries control over quality of aid in terventions donor coordination and increased funding of autonomous or semi autonomous development funds instead of single government agencies Carney Farrington 1998 104 The recent DfID then still ODA evaluation of experiences with shared forest management focuses more on consequences for the donor Wald Info 24 agency itself and concludes that the principle of participation implies a challenge to develop ment agencies self perception Bird 1997 179 Shared forest management initia tives require time This means changes in proj ect management procedures to match longer timeframes to budgetary cycles and in moni toring procedures where process type indica tors are credible proxies for longer term im pacts ibd 181 All this in turn requires new skills among agency staff In this context USAID is working increasingly through international NGOs like Cl WWF WRI TNC This approach can have advan tages like mobilizing experiences in participa tory work and contacts with national NGOs but also limitations especially in countries where NGOs are not yet accepted partners for gov ernment agencies Richards 1994 Within German development cooperation the BMZ tropical forestry sector concept BMZ 1992 stresses the need for German agencies mainly GTZ and KfW to address the situation of for est dependent peo
15. which has concentrated on recognition of territorios ind genas For indigenous peoples this in cludes rights to land water and mineral re sources During the 1980s and 1990s often in the context of profound constitutional reforms especially in South America but also in Nicara gua indigenous people have received different types of government recognition over extended usually forested areas Reconocimiento 1993 In the Amazon these areas comprise more than 100 million hectares Smith forth coming Indigenous peoples are now facing the challenge to consolidate demarcate de fend and manage these areas For this the alternative with the best track rec ord is demarcation of community lands and award of community titles leases or special status accompanied by recognition of tradi tional authority to resolve resource rights dis putes This option does not require the state to understand the complexities of the communi ties tenurial system Community based tenure offers a protective and enabling shell that al lows locally derived management institutions to flourish and adapt to their ecological and social environment Alcorn 1996 246 The GTZ and KfW supported indigenous land protection proj ect PPTAL at the Brazilian Indian Agency FUNAI a part of the PP G7 Programa Piloto para a Protecao das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil has gained valuable experiences with this difficult task In Nicaragua
16. 8 Therefore during the reorganization of forest agencies especially with regard to social forestry the previous gap in extension and other services for local people can hardly and should not be filled by central or regional gov ernment agencies However the development of alternative approaches is still in process As already mentioned local governments are increasingly important actors in Latin America new laws in Brazil 1988 Guatemala 1988 Honduras 1993 and Bolivia 1994 for exam Wald Info 24 ple permit or even require greater municipal in volvement in forest management and conser vation However besides often still lacking technical and managerial capacity for providing the foreseen forestry extension services to community or smallholder associations local governments may also be under pressure by local business elites not to use their new op portunities in the common interest In such situations local peoples organizations can and need to demand accountability In ad dition as the Mexican and Costa Rican cases document producer associations can establish their own forest extension services In contrast so far there is surprisingly little NGO involve ment in social forestry that goes beyond small pilot projects It seems that many NGOs in Latin America are still in a process of reassessing their position vis a vis the state Bebbington 1997 and timber extraction In contrast there is much more NG
17. Brazilian author argued already some time ago that extractive reserves have importance as a means of slowing down the expansion of the agricultural frontier for the short and middle term In the long term however the disappear Wald Info 24 ance of extraction is inevitable 1992 31 Homma As a result the typical venture aimed at pro moting commercially viable harvesting of NTFPs is a small scale one aimed at taking advantage of a limited niche characterized by an existing and accessible market as well as favorable growing conditions There is not room in Latin America for many such projects Southgate 1998 57 Nevertheless relevant and on a local scale encouraging experiences have been gained in Latin America with regard to the management of selected NTFPs as potential components of broader social forestry schemes e g game in the Amazon Bodmer et al 1997 Fang et al 1997 or in Mexico Plan Piloto Forestal see under 3 2 2 or high value medicinal plants see Muller 1998 on raicilla in Costa Rica In most cases however NTFP management means population enhancement or cultivation within or even outside of natural forest not just maintaining the extraction of a natural product at a sustainable level An example for this are the tagua palm patches in Ecuador and Colombia site of Conservation International s highly publicized initiative to promote vegetable ivory buttons and carvings for tro
18. Carrillo Antonio and William Ordonez 1998 Modelo Municipal para el Manejo Sostenible de los Recursos Naturales en Pet n Guatemala City MAGA INAB GTZ PMS BOSQUEjo Pe tenero Documento No 3 CATIE 1998 CATIE s Contribution to Sustain able Rural Development in Central America an Wald Info 24 overview of the impacts of CATIE OLAFO and Magroves projects 1989 1998 Turrialba Costa Rica CATIE Clay Jason 1996 Generating Income and Conserving Resources 20 Lessons from the Field Washington DC WWF COICA and OXFAM Am rica 1996 Amazonia Economia Indigena y Mercado Los Desafios del Desarrollo Aut nomo Quito COICA amp OXFAM Am rica Fang Tula G et al eds 1997 Manejo de Fauna Silvestre en la Amazon a La Paz Bolivia Instituto de Ecolog a 84 UNAP UF UNDP GEF FAO 1997 State of the World s Forests 1997 Rome FAO F rster Ren Jurgen Hess and Jurgen Pretsch 1993 ProzeBanalyse von drei Forest projekten in Guatemala Honduras und Mexiko Eine Erfahrungsaufarbeitung Eschborn Germany GTZ RMSH Ford Foundation 1998 Forestry for Sustainable Rural Development A Review of Ford Founda tion Supported Community Forestry Programs in Asia New York Ford Foundation Freese Curtis H ed 1997 Harvesting Wild Species Implications for Biodiversity Conser vation Baltimore and London Johns Hopkins University Press Gretzinger Steven P 1996 An lisis Financiero del Manejo Foresta
19. O involvement in nature conservation There is also little information on successful partnerships in social forestry between local people and large private companies in Latin America which in situations of ongoing direct competition for and conflict over resources may not be surprising Obviously there are no blueprints for multi agency partnerships Nevertheless it is clear that the institutional change process requires a profound reorientation of government officials and their new partners at all levels focusing on social skills One contribution to this is the de velopment and spread of participatory method ologies As in other parts of the world PRA participatory rural appraisal integrated human development sistematizaci n process docu mentation and analysis self evaluation etc have been applied tested and adjusted in many social forestry projects in Latin America see Appendix 3 A major challenge in the endeavor of institu tional change is usually the process of scaling up from intensively supported and monitored pilot projects focusing on a small area and a limited number of communities to a regional or even national level In the countries visited the Plan Piloto Forestal in Mexico is certainly the project with the broadest impact having cov ered in its 15 years of work 1983 1998 ap prox 400 000 ha of forest managed by 50 ejidos in several associations which provide their own technical servic
20. Paper 22b Winter 1997 98 Schmink Marianne 1997 Building a Concep tual Framework for Gender Issues in Commu nity Based Conservation Paper presented at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association Guadalajara Mexico April 1997 Smith Richard Chase 1996 Biodiversity Won t Feed Our Children Biodiversity Conservation and Economic Development in Indigenous Amazonia In Redford Mansour 1996 197 217 Smith Richard Chase forthcoming Manage ment Planning for Indigenous Territories in Amazonia Addressing Social Factors To be published in Conservation Biology Southgate Douglas 1998 Tropical Forest Con servation An Economic Assessment of the Al ternatives in Latin America New York Oxford Oxford University Press Wald Info 24 Southgate Douglas and Jorge Elgegren 1995 Development of tropical timber resources by local communities a case study from the Peru vian Amazon Commonwealth Forestry Review 74 2 142 146 Uebelh r Konrad 1998 El concepto de uso m ltiple y su aplicaci n en un bosque nacional de Honduras Tegucigalpa PSA Documento T cnico No 2 draft Uphoff Norman 1998 Community Based Natu ral Resource Management Connecting Micro and Macro Processes and People with their Environments Washington DC World Bank International Workshop on CBNRM May 10 14 1998 Watson Vicente et al 1998 Making Space for Better Forestry Policy that Works for Forests and People London ODI
21. Social Forestry in Latin America A First Overview of the Issues Sondra Wentzel 1 Introduction During the late 1980s and early 1990s there was quite some enthusiasm in Latin America for participatory protected area management so called Integrated Conservation and Devel opment Projects or ICDPs and social forestry especially community based forest manage ment or community forestry Social forestry was promoted as a sustainable development model for rural particularly indigenous people in forest areas High hopes were set in non timber forest products NTFP because their extraction was assumed to have a limited impact on the forest concept of extractive reserves Also small scale commercial timber extraction received in creasing attention By the end of the 1990s assessments have become more realistic and there is increasing recognition of the difficulties and limitations of these approaches but also conviction that participation of local people in conservation and forest management is a sine qua non The Latin American experiences gained in a context of increasing democratization and in some countries profound legal and institutional reforms towards decentralization people s participation and recognition of indigenous rights are therefore worth to be carefully assessed This article presents first results of a recent 4 5 months study tour on the state of the art of so cial forestry in Middle and South
22. can then be requested to contribute to municipal or community funds Research on supra community organizations like associations or federations in Latin America shows that they are usually more suitable for political purposes pressure groups for land and resource rights access to markets etc than for managing of economic projects and that they hardly ever become self financing Bebbington 1996 Nevertheless there are now associations of community forestry enter prises like JUNAFORCA Junta Nacional Forestal Campesina in Costa Rica founded in 1991 or UNOFOC Uni n Nacional de Organi zaciones de Forester a Comunal in Mexico founded in 1992 and CICAFOC Comisi n Centroamericana de Foresteria Comunitaria at Central American level founded 1994 and a major partner for the FAO supported Forest Trees and People Program FTPP activities in Wald Info 24 the region These associations like many of their member organizations provide technical services which were formerly a government monopoly or non existant In addition they strive to participate in national discussions about policies affecting them 3 4 Institutional Change All recent overviews on social forestry agree on the need for policy and institutional changes within government forest agencies and beyond and the development of a new division of labor and collaborative relationships with the private sector and NGOs pluralistic approach While maj
23. cas de propiedad de asociados de Codeforsa Ciudad Quesada Proyecto Manejo Integrado de Bosque Natural DFID CODEFORSA MINAE ITCR Colecci n T cnica Manejo de Bosque Natural No 2 Merino Leticia coord 1997 El Manejo Forestal Comunitorio en M xico y sus Perspectivas de Sustentabilidad Mexico City UNAM CRIM SEMARNAP CCMSS Morell M G and M Paveri Anziani 1994 Evolution of public forestry administration in Latin America lessons for an enhanced per formance UNASYLVA 45 178 31 37 Motta Tello Maria Teresa and Fernando Ortiz R eds 1997 Memorias Seminario Interna cional de Silvicultura Comunitaria Cartagena Colombia 12 y 13 de Junio de 1997 Bogota CONIF amp Min de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural S rie Documentaci n No 27 M ller Eva 1998 Anbau der Medizinalpflanze Raicilla Psychotria ipecacuanha im inter venierten Naturwald durch eine Kleinbau ernkooperative im Norden Costa Ricas Wald Info 23 Juni 1998 29 32 Ochoa Ernesto 1995 Memoria del Taller Sobre el Sistema Social Forestal y su Par ticipaci n en el Desarrollo Forestal Sostenible Tegucigalpa CORDEFOR USAID ODA Overseas Development Administration 1996 Sharing Forest Management Key Fac tors Best Practice 8 Ways Forward Findings from ODA s Review of Participatory Forest Management London ODA P vez Lizarraga Iciar and Alan Bojanic Helbingen 1998 El proceso social de formaci n de la Ley Forestal de Bolivia de
24. ch benefits will be higher and more stable in the long run 3 3 Community Organization Establishing a viable business is a challenge for entrepreneurs all over the world even more so for communities or smallholders with limited experiences in market economy First of all the terms community and community based are often being used without much analysis of the social units in question They provoke images of small homogeneous groups with shared norms and common interests and a tradition of collective action which is often not warranted Agrawal 1997 An in depth five country study on Amazonian indigenous communities and their economic projects shows that even among these relatively isolated traditional people the modern community resguardo or comuna as a property owning unit is quite likely not the same kind of kinfolk grouping that tradition ally practiced resource management As a re sult each community needs both new mecha nisms to develop and put into practice a plan and new social norms to ensure group compli ance to the plan Smith 1996 213 see also Smith forthcoming They need to balance the Wald Info 24 interests of individuals domestic units and the collectivity that owns the territory ibd 214 Community can therefore not be taken for granted as a basis for organizing social for estry Community forestry will be more successful where local institutions have a trad
25. conomies of scale in Quintana Roo Mexico for example approx 9000 ha of production for est are considered necessary for a viable community enterprise and in ejidos with smaller forest areas community members are said to loose interest in forest management due to limited immediate benefits Technically no major problems are reported with regard to timber extraction by local people neither by selective logging based on invento ries and management plans nor under the strip cutting system developed by the Tropical Science Center in Costa Rica and applied in Peru Both systems are implemented with no or minimal post harvest treatments With ade quate training and support local people were able to conduct all necessary field based tasks with regard to inventories management plan ning timber extraction and processing In sev eral cases young foresters of community origin are taking over the technical services previ ously provided by outsiders In many countries organizations and projects technical guide lines manuals and training courses for simpli fied inventories and management plans have been developed of which newly starting initia tives can make use see Appendix 3 Serious difficulties often occur with regard to business management of community sawmills or timber marketing enterprises but these may as much be due to social pressures on the indi viduals in charge as to insufficient skills more on this under 3 3
26. e forests are managed as an income source for local gov ernment and or local people They are the fo 5 These are currently being compiled in a publication Check PPTAL website at http Awww funai gov br pptal For an example see Kipla Sait Tasbaika 1997 7 In Honduras until 1992 even trees on private late were state property subject to stumpage fees See article by Killmann et al in this issue Contracts cover a period of 25 years in some cases 50 and the communities have to pay a one time fee a performance bond and standard production based taxes Gretzinger 1998 8 9 Wald Info 24 cus of the FINNIDA supported MAFOR project in Honduras pine forest areas and of the GTZ supported PMS in Guatemala Carrillo Ordonez 1998 In Bolivia the new forest law 1996 be sides handing over 25 of the royalties from timber concessions to municipal governments foresees the establishment of municipal forest reserves up to 20 of state forests in their area to be managed by groups of local people Agrupaciones Sociales del Lugar ASL Kaimowitz et al 1998 The BOLFOR project USAID is supporting the newly created Forest Superintendency in the implementation of these innovative regulations Nevertheless a recent comparative assess ment of different tenurial arrangements cau tions that the prospects for common property management regimes CPMR or rather a continuum of open access CPMR and private tenure
27. es operate their own sawmills and marketing and have some influ ence on forest policy through their regional and national federations Janka 1998 Although this area is half of the federal state s remaining production forest in comparison to the situation in mega forest countries like Brazil it is not very large Due to sheer distances and the number of administrative layers institutions and persons involved scaling up will be much more difficult in a country like Brazil than in Costa Rica a factor so far insufficiently taken into consideration in development cooperation not only in forestry see e g number of GTZ sup ported projects and staff in Table 1 4 Challenges for Project Management The challenges involved in developing and in stitutionalizing SFM and especially social for estry have consequences for development co operation The ODI review on institutional as pects of natural resource management con cludes that donors should be strengthening democratic pluralism Carney Farrington 1998 92 Apparently there is little hope for success in authoritarian settings For forestry there is agreement that international technical assistance is best provided via a programme approach that supports governments at every step of the structural modernization and imple mentation process Morrell Paveri 1994 37 Continued support is needed for managing re forms and establishing innovative partnerships Also
28. is project is not classified as a project of the GTZ division of forestry amp nature protection Arbeitsfeld 4544 volatility of markets for certain extracted luxury goods Freese 1997 For Central America a recent study documents also that expectations for immediate economic returns from certification the costs of which are so far usually covered by outside sponsors are too high In some cases there was no price im pact at all Camino Alfaro 1998 Finally it is predicted that projected increases in global roundwood prices will not be large enough to make a significant improvement in the commer cial prospects of sustainable tropical forestry Southgate 1998 60 In this situation there is a need for more dis cussion about how to finance SFM in high di versity broadleaf forests The question arises which parts of the SFM management cycle can and should be self financing for the forest en terprise be it run by a private company a community or a smallholder and which costs need to be covered from which combination of public and private in country and international sources In this context it is argued that since the benefits of forest conservation and man agement are highest at the national and inter national levels while the costs are usually highest for local people special support for communities or smallholders is warranted Ri chards 1996 So far Costa Rica is the only country which has established a
29. ition of coor dination and there are established rules for managing common property resources Cabarle 1991 8 The organizational chal lenges throughout the process are e First Phase Leadership to secure or obtain a forest area e Second Phase Managerial capacities here grassroots support organizations NGOs are often important e Third Phase Transparency and fairness not necessarily equity in the distribution of benefits e Ongoing Negotiating effective outside sup port while maintaining internal consensus e g on land use decisions e Ongoing Sound fiscal management e g avoiding oversubsidizing of community proj ects from the profits made at the expense of reinvestment in the community forestry en terprise ibd 6 7 A more fundamental issue is that the contra diction of values between the indigenous Ama zonian economy and the market economy has led to a confusion within the moral order of in digenous societies Smith 1996 214 This puts the managers of community enterprises under much social pressure to share their apparent wealth i e community funds There is also a constant conflict between immediate redistribu tion of benefits for either community or individ ual needs and reinvestment in the enterprise needed e g for maintenance of equipment The study concludes that in general collective enterprises have not been viable among in digenous Amazonians ibd 205 and that production is
30. l Comunitario en la Reserva de la Biosfera Maya Caso de la Cooperativa Bethel Turrialba Costa Rica CATIE Gretzinger Steven P 1998 Community Forest Concessions An Economic Alternative for the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Pet n Guatemala In Primack et al 1998 111 124 GTZ 1999 Rahmenkonzeption Waldwirtschaft des Arbeitsfeldes Waldwirtschaft und Naturschutz der GTZ Eschborn GTZ draft Heindrichs Thomas 1997 Innovative Finan zierungsinstrumente im Forst und Naturschutzsektor Costa Ricas Eschborn GTZ Sektorprojekt TWRP Hess J rgen 1996 Kommunale Be wirtschaftung feuchttropischer Naturw lder eine leistungsf hige und stabile Land nutzungsform als Garant f r den Walderhalt Sozio konomische Untersuchungen in Wald bauerngemeinden von Quintana Roo Mexico Tharandt Institut f r Internationale Forst und Holzwirtschaft Schriftenreihe Heft 1 Imbach Alejandro C 1998 An lisis y Perspec tivas del Manejo Forestal en Concesiones Comunitarias Pet n Guatemala Guatemala CATIE OLAFO MAGA PAFG draft Janka Helmut 1998 Kommunale Forstwirtschaft und Erhaltung der tropischen Regenw lder Erfahrungen mit dem Forstpilot projekt in Quintana Roo Mexiko GEP unpub lished document Kaimowitz et al 1998 Local Government and Biodiversity Conservation in the Bolivian Trop ics Bogor CIFOR unpublished paper Kiernan Michael J and Curtis H Freese 1997 Mexico s Plan Piloto Forestal
31. ments relationships between the forest administra tion private enterprise NGOs and commu nities suitability of different types of local or ganizations for different aspects of social forestry Although these arrangements ob viously need to be country and culture spe cific it was intended to identify some general lessons or principles 3 Based on 2 what conclusions can be drawn on desirable or even necessary adjustments in project management instruments and pro cedures Given the amount of information gathered this article is only a first step in what will hopefully become a joint process of learning from experi ences in social forestry in GTZ and beyond liographies of relevant documents are available upon request via e mail SWen642491 aol com See article in this issue 2 The Economic Viability of Sustainable Forest Management in Latin America There are major differences in the size see Table 1 and state of sub tropical broadleaf forests in Middle America including Mexico and South America focus here on the Amazon TABLE 1 OVERVIEW OF THE SITUATION Forested Area 1995 Million Million ha Percent ha of Total Area Country Popu lation 1995 Million Million ha no 9 Wald Info 24 basin The pressures from timber extraction and in its suit conversion to other land uses have so far affected a higher proportion of the initially much smaller forests in Middle Ame
32. mpira Honduras Non governmental organization Non Timber Forest Product Overseas Development Administration London UK Overseas Development Institute London UK Proyecto Conservaci n para el Desarrollo Sosenible en Am rica Central CATIE Turrialba Costa Rica Proyecto de Desarrollo de Bosque Latifoliado La Ceiba Honduras CIDA Proyecto de Desarrollo del Tr pico Cochabambino Bolivia Proyecto de Manejo Sostenible Pet n Guatemala GTZ Plan Piloto Forestal Quintana Roo Mexico GTZ Proyecto Pol tica Forestal Quito Ecuador GTZ Projeto Integrado de Protecao as Populacoes e Terras Ind genas da Amazonia Legal Brazil GTZ 8 KfW Programa Forestal Sucumb os Lago Agrio Ecuador GTZ Proyecto Social Forestal Tegucigalpa Honduras GTZ Program for the Use and Management of Natural Resources Tena Ecuador supported by CS Ressourcenmanagement durch Selbsthilfe sector project GTZ until 1998 Sustainable Forest Management Tierras Comunitarias de Origen Bolivia The Nature Conservancy USA Uni n Nacional Forestal Campesina Mexico Worldwide Fund for Nature international World Wildlife Fund USA World Resources Institute
33. o Yuscar n Honduras Alcald a Municipal AFE COHDEFOR GTZ Wald Info 24 Agrawal Arun 1997 Community in Conserva tion Beyond Enchantment and Disenchant ment Gainesville FL Conservation amp Devel opment Forum CDF Discussion Paper Alcorn Janis B 1996 Forest Use and Owner ship Patterns Issues and Recommendations Pp 233 257 in John Schelhas and Russell Greenberg eds Forest Patches in Tropical Landscapes Washington Covelo Island Press Amaral Paulo ed 1998 Semin rio Manejo Comunit rio na Amazonia Relat rio 20 25 de abril de 1998 Porto Dias Acre N p WWF SUNY CTA Amaral Paulo et al 1998 Floresta Para Sem pre Um Manual para a Producao de Madeira na Amazonia Bel m Par IMAZON 8 WWF USAID APCOB CICOL CICC CABI 1995 Proyecto Participativo de Manejo Sostenible de Bosques y Recursos Naturales con Pueblos Indigenas Santa Cruz de la Sierra Bolivia APCOB Barreto Paulo et al 1998 Costs and benefits of forest management for timber production in eastern Amazonia Forest Ecology and Man agement 108 9 26 Bass Stephen et al 1997 Policies affecting forests and people ten elements that work Commonwealth Forestry Review 76 3 186 190 Bebbington Anthony 1996 Organizations and Intensifications Campesino Federations Rural Livelihood and Agricultural Technology in the Andes and Amazonia World Development 24 7 1161 1177 Bebbington Anthony 1997 Crises and Tran
34. od and Agriculture Organization Rome Italy Finnish development cooperation agency Floresta Nacional Brazil Federaci n Ind gena del Napo Ecuador Forest Stewardship Council Forest Trees and People Programme FAO Rome Italy offices in Latin America in Costa Rica Ecuador Peru and Bolivia Abbr Acr FUNAI GTZ IBAMA ICDP IIED IMAZON INEFAN ITTO JUNAFORCA KFW LTC MAFOR MERGE MOPAWI NGO NTFP ODA ODI OLAFO PDBL PDTC PMS PPF PPTAL PROFORS PSF PUMAREN RMSH SFM TCO TNC UNOFOC WWF WRI Wald Info 24 Explanation Fundacao Nacional do Indio Brazil Deutsche Gesellschaft f r Technische Zusammenarbeit Eschborn Germany Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e Recursos Naturais Renov veis Integrated Conservation and Development Project International Institute for Environment and Development London UK Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazonia Bel m Brazil Instituto Ecuatoriano Forestal y de Areas Naturales y Vida Silvestre Quito Ecuador International Tropical Timber Organization Japan Junta Nacional Forestal Campesina San Jos Costa Rica Kreditanstalt f r Wiederaufbau Frankfurt Germany Land Tenure Center Madison Wisconsin USA Proyecto Manejo y Utilizaci n Sostenida de Bosques de Coniferas en Honduras Tegucigalpa Honduras FINNIDA Managing Ecosystems and Resources with Gender Emphasis University of Florida Gainesville Florida USA Mosquitia Pawisa Puerto Le
35. olicy making with its actual outcomes and that are able to deal with change Bass et al 1997 189 The 10 elements that work are e Opening up the policy process to civil society through forest fora at national and sub national levels e Information monitoring and research which actively feeds into policy and management processes e Capabilities to address extra sectoral influ ences on forests e Agreed national goals for forests focusing on people and their needs for forest goods and services e Policy instruments better geared to stakeholders and national goals for forests e Decentralisation devolution and strength ening capacity as appropriate e Standards and codes of practice for im proved accountability e Development and spread of resource con serving technology e Democracy of knowledge e Framework for continuous policy improve ment ibd 189 190 The role of the state and therefore also of central level forest agencies ideally gets re duced from direct involvement in implementa tion to creating a conducive policy environment setting norms monitoring compliance and me diating conflicts between different stakeholders Richards 1996 This situation leads to the paradoxical situation that commitment is needed from those who are losing power through reform and that a minimalist state is expected to deal with the complex new task of facilitating its own reform Carney Farrington 199
36. or and sometimes conflicting politi cal and economic reform processes rede mocratization decentralization deconcentration amp deregulation structural adjustment programs neoliberalismo have been underway in most Latin American countries forestry has not always been at the core of these reforms Other sector policies as in the case of export crop or livestock development often have negative impacts on forest maintenance Also forest policy reform processes have not always been well documented and analyzed Nevertheless several recent more theoretical considerations comparative studies on natural resource management and forest policy reform processes as well as country studies on Costa Rica and Bolivia document the serious conflicts of interests between different stakeholders but also potential strategies for reform towards a more appropriate division of labor and frame work for collaboration These issues cannot be discussed in detail here but the preliminary conclusions of a comparative study by IIED in dicate the overall direction Policies that work for forests and people will derive from processes that generate local multi stakeholder understanding and commitment 3 So far there seem to be no equivalents in South America 1 See Uphoff 1998 Carney Farrington 1998 Morrell Paveri 1994 Richards 1996 Bass et al 1997 on Costa Rica Watson et al 1998 and Bolivia P vez Bojanic 1998 that link p
37. pical rain forest conservation Southgate 1998 Especially in the case of ex situ man agement the contribution to natural forest maintenance if any is limited to decreasing harvest pressures Worse NTFP cultivation can even compete for land with natural forests 3 2 2 Timber Extraction Processing and Marketing The usual argument for community based or smallholder timber production is that since tim ber is currently the most valuable product ex tracted in large quantities from tropical forests local people need to have their share if they are to have a stake in forest maintenance The general characteristics of community timber production CTP are that e resource rights are either owned by or as signed to local community members e people harvesting the timber live near the site timber is part of a larger land use framework e harvesting is smaller in scale and less capi tal intensive than in industrial timber har vesting e CTP enterprises seek to add value to raw materials on or close to the harvesting site e capital is reinvested locally incentive for sustainability Salafsky 1997 98 5 6 Community timber production may have inherent limitations where large scale industrial wood production or preservation of fragile eco systems are of primary concern Cabarle 1991 8 but in principle it seems an interesting option for many forest areas In Southeast Asia the still limited evidence is at best mi
38. ple and ensure their partici pation in forestry projects and to support not only government agencies but to collaborate also with national NGOs Two recent comparative BMZ evaluations and studies by a sector project address institu tional issues in social forestry projects in Latin America In addition several projects have started to document their own approach The projects discussed vary considerably in terms of focus which may be placed more on the for est trying to gain control over the deforestation process by means of involving local people or on the welfare of forest dependent people for their own sake As a result and also due to the different political settings their strategies differ as well The overall trend in German development co operation in forestry is away from working only with usually badly equipped and poorly moti 18 On Ecuador amp Costa Rica BMZ 1996 and Mexico amp Dominican Republic BMZ 1997 Ressource Management through Self Help or RMSH see Pretzsch et al 1992 Pretzsch et al 1993 F rster et al 1993 17 See e g Janka 1998 Carrillo Ordonez 1998 vated central government forest agencies and towards institutional pluralism at different levels In some countries program approaches combine policy advisory services at central level with field based projects in forestry social forestry and protected area management There is increasing recognition at times
39. r ica than in the vast Amazon basin Certified Forest Enter prises GTZ Involvement in Forestry F Protected Areas P Since Projects GTZ experts Guatemala 108 38 354 106 1986 F F 1 2 5 7 Honduras 4 1 Ecuador 27 7 40 2 2 1 Peu 128 0 67 6 528 238 o Pi Fel 845 7 551 1 65 2 161 8 0 391 Or EA P Sources _ FAO 1997 In Latin America especially in the Amazon for ests under sustainable forest management SFM are rare Nevertheless a still limited but increasing number of certified forest enterprises document that SFM is technically possible see also Table 1 However the economic viability of SFM is still being debated So far timber extraction in Mid dle and South America has focused on high value mahogany which has already been in 45 8 44 11 5 far 11 1 F 2 0 033 2 1984 F 1984 F P i 2 2 2 cluded in CITES Appendix lll as endangered species In all countries visited un or underde veloped markets or unattractive prices for lesser known or secondary timber species were mentioned as a major problem for SFM An ex ception are those regions where deforestation has already advanced to such a degree that e g construction timber is getting scarce The key economic issues are the failure of markets to internalize costs amp benefits of SFM and to fully value future benefits of forests and the GTZ 6 1998 3 Th
40. rather confirmation that process orientation and the capacity to react flexibly to sudden opportunities are vital for project success which in turn requires changes in project planning and management In the context of the decentralization of GTZ and the creation of regional forestry sector networks Fachverbunde among project staff mutual conceptual and practical assistance during project planning implementation and evaluation as it happened for example from PPF Mexico to projects in Guatemala Hondu ras and Ecuador is an interesting option The recently updated GTZ forestry concept out lines basic principles service areas topics for the future and a new set of skill requirements for GTZ advisors GTZ 1999 The focus is much less on technical than on personal so cial and management skills With regard to for estry specific qualifications the ability to deal with policy and institutional issues and experi ence in social forestry and integrated land use systems are given the same importance as technical knowledge in forest management and nature protection With these advisors it should be possible to deal with the challenges of social forestry in Latin America and beyond 5 References AFOCO Zoila P Cruz C 1997a Sistema tizaci n de la Fase de Orientaci n Yuscar n Honduras Alcald a Municipal AFE COHDEFOR GTZ AFOCO Zoila P Cruz C 1997b Sistema tizaci n de Procesos de Desarrollo Human
41. xed Salafsky 1997 98 23 as to whether these enterprises can be ecologically technically economically institutionally and socially sustainable In Latin America the expe riences of several well documented projects in Quintano Roo Mexico Plan Piloto Forestal lowland Peru COFYAL and lowland Bolivia CICOL and cursory information on other ini tiatives also show that establishing viable community based forest management and tim ber processing and marketing enterprises in sub tropical broadleaf forest areas is difficult One already mentioned basic issue is the questionable economic viability of sustainable forest management in general see 2 which seriously affects fledgling community enter prises Another is the fact that most forests now managed by communities or smallholders have already been creamed off by previous logging and thus form a resource base in need of reha bilitation In fact although all community enter prises visited or documented have received substancial free of charge technical and often also financial support they have difficulties making profit There is also the issue of 1 See Richards 1993 LTC 1995 more references in Appendix 3 The experience of indigenous communi ties in the more homogeneous and accessible pine forests of Oaxaca Mexico who without much outside support have developed impressive forest enterprises is more encouraging see LTC 1995 Merino 1997 Wald Info 24 e
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