SOE 2009 Policy Brief - Community Forestry

Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka: State of the Economy 2009 The Global Economic Crisis:
Issues, Impacts and Outlook
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14. Economic Crises and Sustainable Resource Management: Community Forestry in Sri Lanka 14.1 Introduction As the unfolding impacts of the global economic crisis capture the immediate attention of policy makers, other evolving global concerns such as climate change are in danger of being sidelined, at least for the time being. However, the impacts of such developments could have more serious and longer lasting consequences for the global economy than the relatively more short-lived economic cycles of busts and booms. A key concern in this regard relates to sustainable management of natural resources. Deforestation like the heavy consumption of fossil fuels that is primarily responsible for increased green house gas (GHG) emissions also acts as a factor that accelerates the process of GHG emissions. Moreover, there are numerous forest goods and services that make a positive contribution to the economy and environment. Therefore, reducing deforestation is important to face the threat of climate change, as well as to secure the overall sustainability of economies around the world. In this context, community forestry (CF) is viewed as an alternative strategy to reduce deforestation and support sustainable development.
14.2 Issues of Deforestation in Sri Lanka Although deforestation in Sri Lanka is often viewed as a consequence of locally driven factors, historically, it has had clear associations with the global economy. The issue of deforestation first came up in Sri Lanka in the latter part of the 19th century, due to large scale conversions of virgin wet zone forests for export oriented plantation agriculture. For instance, establishment of tea, rubber, and coconut plantations in the low country wet zone has resulted in significant reduction in natural forest cover. Also, the establishment of cardamom crop in the Knuckles forest has caused severe deforestation and degradation. Secondly, as currently experienced, due to increased population pressure, and consequent issues of land fragmentation, farmers tend to cultivate commercial food crops by clearing the surrounding natural forests in the dry and intermediate zones. For
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Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka: State of the Economy 2009 The Global Economic Crisis: Issues, Impacts and Outlook
example, rapid expansion of highland commercial agricultural crops has become a main cause for deforestation in the dry zone of the country today.
Figure 14.1 shows the decline of natural forest cover between 1983 and 1992, where a majority of districts located in the dry and intermediate zones recorded a negative change in their forest coverage. Agricultural expansion in the dry zone is primarily driven by the motive of import substitution of locally consumed food crops, and thus has clear implications on deforestation. While the implications of the global economic crisis on natural forests may not be clearly visible at present, it might have indirect implications on natural resources, including forests. The implications primarily come in the form of conversion of forest lands to agriculture, and not through trading of forest products as in the case of many other forest-owning countries.
Figure 14.1: Percentage Change in Natural Forest Cover by District (1983-1992)

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60
40
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0 Galle Kurunegala Mullaittivu Hambantota Nuwara Eliya Anuradhapura Polonnaruwa Trincomalee Moneragala Colombo Kilinochchi Batticaloa Gampaha Ratnapura Vavuniya Kalutara Puttalam Ampara Jaffna Kegalle Kandy Badulla Mannar Matale Matara
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-40
-60
-80
Source: Illustrated using data from Legg, C.,N. Jewell (1995), A 1:50,000-scale Forest Map for Sri Lanka: The Basis for a National Forest Geographic Information System, The Sri Lanka Forester, Vol.10, Nos. 3 & 4.
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Due to the fact that a majority of agricultural development and colonization programmes from the mid-20th century were concentrated in dry zone areas, forests in the dry zone have become more fragmented recently. As a result, the management of fragmented and isolated patches of dry zone forest has become a challenge for the forest managing agencies. The Forest Department (FD) with its command and control oriented approach to forest management, seems to be less effective in protecting such isolated patches of dry and intermediate zones due to a number of reasons. The situation calls for adopting a participatory approach to forest management, where local communities have an important role to play as key stakeholders in forest management than at present. As per the international experience, CF is viewed as an alternative strategy to reduce deforestation and, thereby, to foster sustainable forest management through meaningful community involvement (Box 14.1). Box 14. 1: International Experience of CF CF is increasingly being recognized as an alternative approach for managing natural forest resources. Based on the experience from CF implementing countries all over the world, Malla (2007) finds that community management of forest areas including forests with high bio-diversity value have generated favourable impacts. A significant amount of degraded forest lands in the world have been converted into improved watersheds and landscapes through which local communities are also benefited. Based on present evidence, it is found that CF has led to improved forest governance with community involvement in an inclusive, transparent, and accountable manner. Communal management of forests is also seen as an important source of investment, particularly in developing countries where overall government spending on forest conservation is comparably low. However, governments have to respond positively to new and changing demands of forest management, rather than continue to rely on the top-down, highly bureaucratic approaches in place. It requires a range of knowledge and skills in planning and implementing CF. As per the international experience, most of the successful CF programmes have been developed by government agencies in close collaboration with ground level government officers, community level leaders, NGO representatives, researchers, and donor agencies, where every stakeholder has an important role to play. Also, outside donor funding is found to have been more effective where donors have encouraged collaboration amongst relevant stakeholders. A few examples of such effective and long term donor commitments are the Nepal Swiss CF Project, the Nepal-Australia CF Project, and the Livelihood and Forestry Programme. Such projects have enabled local people to earn a significant amount of
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cash income, and have enhanced rural development in turn. In spite of the positive impacts of CF, it involves key challenges such as scaling up of CF programmes beyond pilot projects, equitable distribution of benefits, etc. which should be considered in the planning and implementation process.
Source: Malla, Y. (2007), Community-Based Forest (Natural) Resource Management: A Path to Sustainable Environment and Development, Lessons from Three Decades of Experience and Future Challenges, in RECOFTC 19872007: The First Twenty Years, RECOFTC.
14.3 Importance of CF in Sri Lanka Managing fragmented forest patches with the available limited human and financial resources poses a considerable challenge to the FD. On the other hand, the root cause of deforestation in fragmented forest sites is upland cultivation and associated farming activities. Thus, direct and active community involvement is crucial to manage fragmented forests effectively. Lessons from a recent pilot project on CF, Sri LankaAustralia Natural Resource Management Project (SLANRMP) implemented by the FD with the support of the Australian government shows that active community involvement in forest management can generate favourable results to control deforestation in certain local forests in the dry and intermediate zone. The experience of the project also provides successful examples for aforestation and reforestation initiatives, undertaken with active community involvement in degraded forest areas.
In addition, CF may induce attitudinal changes among communities towards conservation. The introduction of CF is often associated with awareness creation among the communities on the importance of forest resources, and the role of communities to protect them. Favourable attitudes generated by such programmes could lead to significant impacts in terms of wise use of forest products and services by the communities.
CF can result in a number of favourable direct and indirect environmental outcomes. The protection of catchments which contains tributaries of major rivers in Sri Lanka is an important outcome in this regard. This is particularly important because agriculture in Sri Lanka is largely dependent on irrigation tanks which are supported by such catchments.
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The protection of catchments is again important in the face of increasing water scarcity due to the ongoing climate change processes.
Available evidence shows that CF has a number of subsidiary impacts on communities, in addition to its direct positive impacts in reducing deforestation and protection of catchments. The experience of the CF pilot projects implemented in several districts of Sri Lanka shows that the formation of community-based organizations (CBOs) and their active role in CF has not only led to the success of the initiative, but also resulted in certain positive spill-over impacts on the community. For instance, through various training and capacity-building programmes and hands-on experience, the communities have been better able to link with outside organizations to mobilize their support for community development.
Table 14.1 provides a summary of pilot activities adopted by the SLANRMP in different local areas with community participation.
Table14. 1: Community Forestry Pilot Activities Undertaken through SLANRMP Category Activities undertaken Remarks Establishment of nurseries Undertaken to restore Establishment of plantations degraded forest lands, Maintenance of plantations Forest-based to afforest selected activities lands, and to minimize Establishment of fire line the impacts on forest Maintenance of fire line Collection of non-timber forest products fires. Home gardens development Dress making Aimed at providing Handicrafts alternative income Paddy farming sources for households, Lime drying and thereby to upgrade Micro-enterprise Soap making well-being of poor activities communities, which Dairy would act as an Other livestock incentive to participate Food processing in CF activities. Shoe making Bee keeping Community-based Tank rehabilitation Undertaken to improve
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Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka: State of the Economy 2009 The Global Economic Crisis: Issues, Impacts and Outlook activities Village infrastructure Community halls/facilities Community-based aquaculture Eco tourism
infrastructural and livelihood opportunities at the community level.
Source: Sri Lanka-Australia Natural Resource Management Project, Annual Plan 2007-2008.
14.4 Challenges for CF in Sri Lanka The relationship between forests and people is somewhat distinct in Sri Lanka when compared with other developing countries. The forest peripheral communities in Sri Lanka are comparatively less dependent on forest products as a source of income. Instead, they are dependent on forest land for their upland agricultural activities which forms a major part of household income. This is somewhat distinct from the observations from other countries such as India, Nepal, and certain African countries where there is high dependence on forest products. The nature of the forestpeople relationship in Sri Lanka creates a challenge for sustainability of the forest resource. This is because being dependent on forest lands (rather than on forest products) has direct implications on deforestation, and thereby on the sustainability of the resource. Thus, the common notion that high dependence on forest products could act as a powerful economic incentive for communities to protect natural forests may not be applicable to the Sri Lankan context.
Thus, the introduction of CF in the current setting may lead to negative impacts on livelihoods of the households who are dependent on forest lands for their farming activities. Therefore, the creation of a proper incentive mechanism for households for those farming income to be forgone, is of prime importance. This is critical in terms of safeguarding the livelihoods of people, as well as in ensuring the sustainability of CF initiatives.
Since the dependence on forest products is low in Sri Lanka, there is only limited space for promoting forest-based small industries as a means of compensating forgone economic benefits. In this backdrop, it is important to introduce alternative ways of compensating forgone benefits for communities. However, livelihood related activities
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are beyond the scope and mandate of the FD. Therefore, at the ground level, it is a challenge to get the relevant agencies involved in the process, and to properly coordinate them to achieve the goals of CF. Given current capacities and availability of resources, it remains a challenging task for the FD.
14.5 Institutional and Policy Issues The present system of forest management is based on the provisions made by the Forest Ordinance. Accordingly, there is a command and control approach to management, where community participation is not considered a key stakeholder involvement in forest management activities. As such, the Ordinance does not have provisions for creating legal partnerships with the communities and the private sector. Hence, there is limited room for active community involvement in forest management in Sri Lanka. However, having identified the importance of partnering with the communities and the private sector, the FD is in the process of introducing new forms of legal partnership agreements with communities.
The introduction of CF has to be necessarily coupled with capacity building programmes at all levels of implementation. On the other hand, physical and financial facilities required for implementation of CF has also to be provided. In the present set-up, the FD alone, with the limited amount of financial resources it receives from the Treasury, is not capable of financing such programmes. Whereas such resource needs have been covered to some extent with donor support in the pilot project, it is necessary for the FD to explore innovative mechanisms of resource mobilization for CF in the future. The international experience suggests that while donor funds are important in the initiation and expansion of CF programmes, in the long run, alternative funding sources for instance, community-private partnerships will have to be looked into.
14.6 Policy Implications and Recommendations Recent pilot experiences have established CF as an alternative approach to forest management with the potential to generate numerous social, economic, and
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environmental benefits. In particular, it can be seen as a useful way of managing isolated patches of forest resources in the dry and intermediate zones of the country which are surrounded by agricultural communities. However, the present regulatory system of forest management does not create a conducive environment for necessary cooperation between local communities and the FD for successful CF. It is a positive sign that the FD is in the process of bringing necessary modifications to allow for legal partnerships with local communities in forest management.
In order to perform facilitation and coordination of CF activities, dedicated staff members of the FD are required. Essentially, capacity building of dedicated staff has to be done in order to enable them to interact and collaborate with the communities effectively. Maintaining favourable relationships by ground level FD officers is a significant factor that determines the success of CF. Thus, training has to be given to staff at all levels of the implementation process. On the other hand, training and capacity building programmes should also aim at creating a right attitude towards active community involvement in forest management.
Above all, in order to raise necessary resources for implementation of CF, the FD has to mobilize additional resources than at present. This could partly be achieved by coordinating with other relevant agencies that have direct and indirect interests in CF. Such organizations include government organizations, private organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), microfinance institutions and CBOs. Development of funding facilities at the local, regional, and national levels with such relevant organizations is also very important to compensate community members who are engaged in supportive CF activities.
Due to the comparatively low dependence on forest resources of the local communities, future CF initiatives should necessarily look into avenues for creating incentives for community participation. Past experience suggests that incentives can be brought about at household as well as at community level through livelihood support activities and
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community development activities. In this regard, the FD should be the facilitator and the coordinator of support extended by various agencies.
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SOE 2009 Policy Brief - Community Forestry

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Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka: State of the Economy 2009 The Global Economic Crisis:

Issues, Impacts and Outlook

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Figure 14.1: Percentage Change in Natural Forest Cover by District (1983-1992)

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infrastructural and livelihood opportunities at the community level.

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