Community Forestry, Livelihoods and Conservation: Building upon a - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Community Forestry, Livelihoods and Conservation:

Building upon a Wealth of Local Experience

Christine Padoch

Promoting community forestry within sustainable landscapes while securing livelihoods and conserving ecosystem services is difficult

• However, there is much to build upon, both in the area of

management practice and governance.

• Do community forestry practitioners take advantage of the

resources that existing local patterns & practices offer?

• For millennia forests and other non-agricultural

ecosystems have been managed to better satisfy a variety of human and societal needs, including the need for food

• However, many of these traditional forms of

management have remained “invisible” to many researchers and development practitioners and

• thers have been criminalized
• We need to focus on identifying, understanding and

evaluating their realities, potentials, and the trade-offs they demand.

Smallholders do not only “use” and “rely

• n” forests they also “manage” and

“create” forests and forest resources

chacra chacra nueva platano platano yucal y platanal frutal chacra en produccion frutal purma vieja chacra en produccion platano huerta purma vieja purma

Smallholders have long managed landscapes: an example from the Amazon

These systems often contribute significantly to food and income security

• A billion people depend to

some degree on forest resources

• Help ensure flexibility and

contribute to appropriate responses to the more frequent I climatic and economic perturbations that can be expected with climate change

• Can satisfy the burgeoning

needs for nutritional security of local communities.

Smallholder-managed Landscapes Shifting cultivation in Laos

Managing forests for food production

Most forests are rich in “natural” resources but they are also rich because local groups have enriched forests through their knowledge and practice.

An example from Amazonia

• How are forests managed by local people?

fruit leaves leaflets trunk roots raquiles broom fruit juice smoke rubber (coagulate) fertilizer roof cover poguega shrip ait wrap peoha liig elt general covers leaves/ crownshaft heart of palm hat trunk paper pulp construction beams floor boards fences walls bridges cacuri fixed fishig trap Construction of raised plant bed Medicine for stomach problems dye domestic animal fodder foundation for general construction

Acai palm (Euterpe oleracea)

Figure courtesy of E. Brondizio

Banana Acai Pineapple Lemon grass Papaya

Unmanaged forest Thinning & Sowing Pruning acai clumps Selective clearing Inter-cropping Acai over bananas

Unmanaged  Intensive Managed Crops: Annuals  bi-annuals  Perennials Terrain preparation  Acai plantation

Clearing & leveling

Transplanting in rows

Acai monoculture

Figure courtesy of E. Brondizio

Three Ways to Make an Acaizal

Management for Multiple Products

Village of Tae Sanggau, Kalimantan Barat

SWIDDEN FALLOW ADAT LAND TEMBAWANG

• They are not “managed enough” or

“formally enough” for development

• They are “too managed” for conservation
• These systems are dynamic.
• This is particularly unfortunate because

management also frequently creates rights to forests.

• But these practices largely fall

“between the cracks”

Different forests, Different access rights Different communities

• Tembawang: Lineage group

rights

• Tanah adat: Village rights
• Swidden-fallows: Household

rights

• And they are all changing

• Migration
• Urbanization
• Impact of remittances
• How can these systems respond to

these and other new challenges?

• And how can we help?

Changing Communities (as well as Landscapes): Challenges to Community Forestry