Commitment to decentralisation in forestry despite past disappointments

Decentralisation in the forestry sector holds the promise of sustainable development through local participation. Yet, while shifting responsibility away from central authorities toward communities can result in efficiency and more equitable distribution of resources, the results so far in Africa and Asia have been mixed at best.

Local people should be the primary beneficiaries of a decentralisation process that promotes greater local decision-making power, equity and democracy," said Anne Larson, a researcher with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), in a paper she delivered recently at an international workshop in Interlaken, Switzerland, on decentralisation in forestry. And she added, "Nevertheless, the case studies demonstrate that local management strategies are often undermined by current policies, and local participation and accountability mechanisms are often ineffective."

Still, countries are proceeding with decentralisation in the forestry sector, with pressure for change coming from the top and bottom. Setbacks and successes are treated as valuable lessons to be shared and learned from. The Interlaken workshop, sponsored by Indonesia and Switzerland and organised by CIFOR, Intercooperation and United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), brought together 170 people from 50 countries to do just that. The experiences of a number of African and Asian countries demonstrate the potential benefits and the pitfalls of the decentralised approach to forestry management in practice.

Asia

Since the mid-1980s, the Philippines has been pursuing a policy of decentralisation in its forestry sector. Almost 6 million hectares have so far been designated for some form of community-based management, involving hundreds of thousands of communities, mostly in upland areas. Most of the effort remains on paper, but there is some work on the ground. In Bukidnon, Mindanao, for example, the government is guiding the indigenous people of the Kitanglad Range to play a bigger part in managing their ancestral forests. The process has involved a tangle of procedure and competing interests. Still, indigenous people for the most part and government are hailing the effort as worthwhile. "Decentralisation is effective because it focuses decision-making at the local levels, provided there is participation and involvement from local stakeholders, including devolution of decision-making authority," said Adolino Saway, Chief of the Council of Elders of the Mount Kitanglad Range Natural Park, in his workshop presentation. Meanwhile the government recognises that biodiversity and conservation cannot be achieved without looking at the sustainability of development of the local communities.

In Indonesia, decentralisation laws have shifted responsibility for forestry to district governments. The national government has retained direct management responsibility only for national parks and nature reserves. Some blame the poor results of decentralisation in Indonesia on the speed with which it was implemented and on lack of capacity at the district level. "Decentralisation was expected to lead to greater transparency, and more democratic and equitable management of forest resources. Practically, however, it has also created many negative impacts. Now our major challenge is to put decentralisation in the forestry sector back on the right track," said Wahjudi Wardojo, Secretary General of Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry. "Decentralisation process must be implemented in a stepwise manner, namely, initiation, installation, consolidation, and stabilisation," he told participants in the Interlaken workshop.

Other observers place the blame for the forestry sector's woes, principally illegal or illicit logging, squarely on corruption. "Logging operations were done and are being done, currently, in a very bad manner; cutting all sorts of profitable woods without any consideration of sustainable forest management. That's the reality. Often times people don't know what's really going on and all of a sudden the forest is gone," said Togu Manurung, Director of Forest Watch Indonesia. "I think the only way to handle this problem is to attack the root causes of the problem. And the root cause of the problem in Indonesia up to nowadays is corruption."

Africa

Local governments in Uganda manage 5000 hectares of local forest reserves and oversee the forests on private lands, which constitute 70 percent of Uganda's forests. But 10 years after the decentralisation process was introduced in Uganda, it has not taken hold in the forestry sector, reported Steve Nsiita, Co-ordinator, Natural Forest Management, National Forest Authority of Uganda. "Friction between the central government Forestry Department and local governments continues because the laws governing local governments and those governing forestry have not clarified whether forests are decentralised or not. The ensuing confusion has led to deterioration of forests through illegal harvesting and encroachment for agriculture and settlement," he said in his paper.

Still, the Forest Authority official remains committed to the principle of decentralisation and seems optimistic about it bearing fruit. "What we have realised is that, yes, people do get benefits from [the forest] and therefore it would make sense for them to take part in management. And the other thing is that we really don't manage those things for government, we manage them for the people and therefore it makes sense for them to come in and take part in the management and benefits," Mr Nsiita said.

The focus of decentralisation in Ghana is the promotion of consultative mechanisms, devolution of power, competence and resources to the country's district assemblies. One of the major achievements has been the development of mechanisms that ensure that district assemblies, not government, are agents of change at the local level. The decentralisation process has suffered, however, from central government's reluctance to completely decentralise key revenue-generating sectors. In addition, the participation of civil society, non-governmental organisations and community organisations in the rolling out of the decentralisation process has been weak, reported Oppon Sasu, Team Leader, High Forest Resource Management, Forestry Commission of Ghana. For decentralisation to truly succeed, however, government must give priority to empowering and building capacity of local communities to effectively manage their natural resources, he said.

In South Africa too, policymakers have recognised the value of involving local people in forestry. The effort recognises indigenous knowledge and the fact that people take better care of resources for which they feel some ownership responsibility and from which they can hope to derive long-term benefits. "What we have come up with is a participatory forestry management policy which basically aims at involving communities living adjacent to the forest in policy formulation or even the management of forests," said Renny Madula, Deputy Director, Forestry Policy, Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, South Africa. "This is in recognition of the fact that indigenous communities have been interacting with the forests over a long period of time and have been deriving benefits from those forests, and in many cases know even better than ourselves how those resources can be managed."

The Interlaken Workshop on Decentralisation in Forestry was held 27-30 April 2004. After sharing their experiences, the participants worked together to produce proposals for consideration at the Fourth Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests held in May in Geneva.

For more information see: www.cifor.cgiar.org or email: cifor@cgiar.org