Topic: senegal

Poor in Senegal Denied Benefits of Forest Resources

Jesse Ribot — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:33:22 -0400

In many developing countries, forestry policies systematically exclude the poor from the wealth of the forests around them. Senegal provides an interesting example of how even good policies can fail to deliver the benefits they are intended to provide.

I wrote about this phenomenon as it occurs in both Senegal and Nicaragua (with reference to Mali, Honduras, Cameroon, Uganda, Brazil and India) in a study co-authored with Anne Larson of the Center for International Forestry (CIFOR), and published in the Journal of Sustainability Science.

Rural populations in Senegal lose out because they are denied access to forests and access to commercial trade. To be allowed to manage their own forests, rural communities must develop and use management plans approved by the National Forest Service (NFS). These plans are expensive to develop and require great labor to implement. It’s also not clear that they are ecologically necessary.

Meanwhile largely urban-based merchants hire migrant laborers to produce charcoal using traditional kilns, without having to present management plans. As a result, they can produce at lower cost, and without the responsibility for forest management.

Until 1998, the system of forest management in Senegal remained highly centralized, involving a system of licenses, permits, and quotas allocated by the NFS. The NFS fixed annual quotas for charcoal production, allocating them to their urban-based merchant allies. The 1998 forestry code eliminated the quotas as of February 2001, passing production decisions to local governments and rural councils. But despite the legal changes, the NFS continues to control forest access, issuing quotas and permits—as if no laws had changed.

NFS officials and agents claim that the quotas are based on national charcoal demand and available forest supply. But they do not really have sufficient data to know. The NFS has steadily lowered quotas as a “forest protection” measure, despite continued high demand, giving rise to illegal production to satisfy the shortages.

Meanwhile, rural communities continue to be excluded from forest management and policy development, not to mention being subject to double standards and arbitrary enforcement. As a result, their poverty continues, and they do not share in the benefits that the changes in law were nominally intended to provide.

Unfair Forestry Policies Abet Poverty, Finds New Study

Jon Talbot — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:41:00 -0400

Unfair government policies fail to benefit poor people who live in the forests of many developing countries. Those same policies fail even to protect forests, according to a new study.

Double standards and arbitrary enforcement are the main culprits. In Senegal, for example, rural communities must produce and follow detailed forestry management plans, while corporations need only a simple permit. In Honduras, authorities ensure that community groups follow certain regulations, while ignoring the activities of corporations bound by the same laws. Similar stories have played out in Mali, Honduras, Cameroon, Uganda, Brazil, Nicaragua and India, according to the study.

“People in poverty are not just left behind by government policy. They are excluded,” said Jesse Ribot of the Institutions and Governance Program of the World Resources Institute and co-author of the report. “Deliberate policy choices, including some environmental laws and decisions by environmental agencies, are a major cause of that exclusion.”

With an estimated 80 percent of the world’s forests on state-owned land, and 1.6 billion people dependent on forests for their livelihoods, government decisions about the use of forests are all-important to the effort to eradicate poverty.

“History shows us that the traditional model of ‘scientific forestry’ management focuses on maximizing profit for a few,” said Anne M. Larson of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the study’s other co-author. “Governments have the ability – and we would argue the obligation – to use these resources to combat poverty by first reexamining their forest policies.”

Forestry laws in many countries have changed very little since European colonists emphasized control of natural resources with no safeguards for the forest dwellers and few for the health of the environment. More participation in drafting forest policies by the people who live in the forested areas might help reduce poverty and the natural landscape, the study concludes.

“The poverty of forestry policy: Double standards on an uneven playing field” is published in Volume 2, Number 2 of the Journal of Sustainability Science, and is also available at www.wri.org.

Video - Foresters Collude with Merchants: Coercing the Mayor to Cut the Forest

Jesse Ribot — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:16:52 -0500

These films show how Senegal’s Forestry service, forest merchants, and other government agents are blocking local governments from playing their legal role in forest management and use.

I produced this film to demonstrate to Senegal’s Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Local Government how the Forestry Service is blocking forest-sector decentralization. My research examines distributional equity in Senegal under its forest-sector decentralization.

This video is in Wolof and French, available with either English or French subtitles.

English

Summary

Mr. Weex Dunx (Mr. ‘Plucked white’ or Scapegoat), the elected President of the Rural Council of Nambaradougou (Place of many problems), is ecstatic to learn that new decentralization laws have given his council the right to manage and use forests. Mr. Weex Dunx and the council now have the right to decide who gets cut and sell wood and how much wood can be cut in their jurisdiction. But, when Weex Dunx tries to exercise his new powers he is confronted by incredulous foresters, administrators and merchants who are in shock that he thinks he can make decisions about the forests. Exasperated because these powerful notables don’t like him if he resists and his people don’t like him if he gives in, Weex Dunx is torn between doing what is right for his community or surrendering to pressures from powerful people whom he does not want to disappoint.

Français

Sommaire

En wolof, weex signifie « blanc » et dunx signifie « plumé ». Weex dunx, ou le « blanc plumé », signifie le « bouc émissaire ». M. Weex Dunx (M. Bouc émissaire), le président élu du Conseil rural de Nambaradougou (Endroit qui a beaucoup de problèmes), exulte lorsqu’il apprend que les nouvelles lois de décentralisation ont donné à son conseil le droit de gérer et d’utiliser les forêts. Le conseil peut maintenant décider combien de bois de sera coupé dans sa juridiction et qui sera chargé de la coupe et de la vente. Mais, lorsque Weex Dunx essaie d’exercer ses nouveaux pouvoirs, il se trouve confronté à des forestiers incrédules, des administrateurs et des marchands scandalisés qu’il pense pouvoir prendre des décisions concernant les forêts. Exaspéré parce que ces puissants notables ne l’aiment pas s’il résiste et parce que ses gens ne l’aiment pas s’il cède, Weex Dunx est déchiré entre faire ce qui est bon pour sa communauté et s’incliner devant les pressions d’individus puissants qu’il ne veut pas décevoir.

The Poverty of Forestry Policy: Double Standards on an Uneven Playing Field

Jesse Ribot — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:15:02 -0400

Can policies designed to maximize exploitation by elites benefit the people who live in forests? Forestry policy throughout the developing world originates from European “scientific” forestry traditions exported during the colonial period. These policies were implemented by foreign and local elite whose interest was to maximize and extract profit. In spite of reforms since the end of the colonial period, policies on the environment usually remain biased against rural communities. Even when more recent policies are fair, the rural poor face severe biases in implementation. In addition, they must compete on an uneven playing field of ethnic and other social inequities and economic hurdles. This article examines how forestry policy and implementation maintain double standards on this uneven playing field in a manner that permanently excludes the rural poor from the natural wealth around them—producing poverty in the process. Change that would support poverty alleviation for forest-based communities requires a radical rethinking of forest policy so as to counterbalance widespread regressive policies and structural asymmetries.