Asian governments banking on social forestry to sustain reforestation efforts
Social forestry can contribute significantly to improving the livelihood of poor rural people
DR. MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN
A village group in Indonesias Kalimantan Island plants a small community fuel-wood plantation. A Vietnamese landowner plants trees along her field as a living fence and as source of fuel-wood. Filipino farmers plant trees that they will sell later to a local paper mill, for pulpwood. Rural landless people in West Bengal, India, plant, tend, and benefit from trees they grow on government lands. Villagers in the Chacon Valley of Nepal trees along fields for windbreaks and fuel-wood. Villagers in Thailand intercrop trees with food crops.
All of these are examples of social forestry. All are boosting much-needed forestation in thinning Asian forests.
Today, high-level decision-makers have begun to realize that social forestry can contribute both directly and indirectly to improving the environment, increasing food and energy security, and reducing unemployment, which are three key issues preoccupying most world leaders.
Two ingredients are common in successful social forestry programs: widespread local participation backed by higher level political support, and sustainable, productivity-increasing technologies that are adaptable to local circumstances and acceptable to local populations.
The term social forestry is used interchangeably with farm and community forestry and forestry for local community development by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations according to Dr Sarah Kentai of the Tribhuvan University, Institue of Forestry.
The terms refer to a broad range of tree- or forest-related activities undertaken by rural landowners and community groups to provide products for their own use and for generating local income.
Social forestry may also include governments or other groups planting trees on public lands to meet local village needs. In conventional industrial production forestry, trees are also used to meet the needs of people, and social forestry often involves farmers and other small holders producing commercial tree crops. In that sense, all types of forestry can contribute to social goal, Dr Kentai said.
There is a continuum from the large-scale, industrial forest based corporation, with its objectives related to sales and profits, to the small village or rural farmers growing trees to meet their own needs. The primary focus in social forestry is on involving community and individual farmers with trees and on analyzing how people grow trees and use them while they grow.
Social forestry can contribute significantly to improving the livelihood of poor rural people through soil improvement. It can also supply wood for home construction, farm building, fencing, fuel, and fiber; food supplements; windbreak protection; and shade and fodder for livestock.
Social forestry can provide income for farmers and rural communities and can help to move people from the frightening and fragile condition of mere subsistence to a better level of living. Judgment must be used in deciding how and when to integrate trees into farming systems, because trees may also compete with agricultural crops if not introduced appropriately.
The writer is a practicing environmentalist and an author
