Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

ural poor households do not have secure tenure and access
rights. Often poor households borrow from private lenders
at unreasonably high interest rates to obtain money they
urgently need. This often results in households having to
exploit resources unsustainably to pay interest charges. The
high interest rates often result in households either never
repaying or slowly paying back the capital.
Access to technical and marketing services. Small-scale
enterprises also need access to technical and marketing
services. Given the low incomes of households involved and
the low unit value of fuelwood and nontimber products,
provision of conventional technical services may not be
feasible. In such cases, facilitating the exchange of information
among villagers through various channels can be beneficial.
Greater market access for forest products.
Increasing market access for forest products can enhance
forests’ contribution to alleviating poverty. Small timber
producers need to be more competitive with large timber
companies, both in niche and domestic markets. This
requires small timber producers to address challenges, such
as lack of economies of scale. Creating arrangements that
would facilitate smallholder marketing of timber would
enhance that sector’s contribution to income generation.
Some simple changes include reversing the existing forestry
regulations that tend to discriminate against small farmers
and microenterprises by having fewer and simpler
regulations and less paper work (see note 1.5, Making
Markets Work for the Forest-Dependent Poor).
In some countries and regions, aggregate demand for
fuelwood, wood for charcoal, and for commercially valuable
nontimber forest products (for example, bushmeat) is
growing. These are often peri-urban markets that can be
profitable, making it economically attractive for farmers to
plant trees and produce or harvest the needed commodities.
There are also growing markets for furniture and
housing materials, including construction timber and
poles. Support for producing and marketing better quality
products as well as improved infrastructure for accessing
these markets could provide more employment and better
remuneration, particularly if domestic per capita income
grows. Such support can be provided through microenterprise
development activities that provide attention to the
associated natural resource issues and ensure a sustainable
supply of raw material.
Another rapidly expanding market is that of environmental
services provided by forests (see note 2.3, Innovative
Marketing Arrangements for Environmental Services),
including carbon sequestration (see the World Bank’s Carbon
Finance Unit Operations Handbook at http://carbon
finance.org/Router.cfm?Page=DocLib&ht=34&dl=1).
These markets need to be accessible to forest-dependent
households if they are to serve the purpose of engendering
sustainable resource use and land-use practices. Creating
the enabling conditions will require, among other things,
clear and secure rights over forests and woodlands.
Importance of forest and tree components in
agroforestry. Forest and tree components will often
become more important where there is greater reliance on
agroforestry. This can happen in the following instances:
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where changes in the availability of land, labor, and capital
favor tree crops as low-input land uses where labor is
the limiting factor (for example, in multistory “home
gardens” that increase land productivity), or as low-cost
inputs into farm systems (for example, in place of purchased
fertilizer)
where growth in agricultural incomes can lead to
increasing local commercialization of subsistence goods,
such as fuelwood and other forest products
where improved rural infrastructure gives farmers
greater access to markets for forest fruits and other products
of trees that can be grown as part of farm systems
Reversing existing top-down approaches. The
contribution forests could make to rural development,
forest conservation, and economic growth has been
undermined by conventional top-down approaches to
forestry. Transparent and accountable governance is critical
to fostering pro-poor growth and essential to ensuring that
this natural resource wealth is managed wisely. There is also
a need to remove or relax regulatory provisions that
reinforce the structural and scale advantages that the state
possesses as producer of many forest products. The
relationship between the forest department and small local
producers would also benefit from separation of the
regulatory function of the former from involvement in
forest management and delivery of support services (see
note 5.2, Reforming Forest Institutions).
Importance of local leadership, institutional capacity,
and human resources. Activities oriented toward poverty
reduction call for exceptional local leadership, institutional
capacity, and adequate human resources in implementing
agencies. These are not always available on the sustained basis
required for operations that typically span several years.
CHAPTER 1: FORESTS FOR POVERTY REDUCTION 21