Research

Managing forest conflicts in Ghana

In principle, harvesting of timber from farmlands in Ghana should always be done with the consent of the farmer. In practice however, this does not happen. Farm crops are often destroyed in the course of timber harvesting and extraction. Payment of compensation for damaged crops is a major area of forest conflict. Such conflicts are often not well-managed, with the farmer losing in most cases. Farmers therefore tend to destroy timber species before they can be harvested. For the same reasons, farmers are known to condone illegal logging and in-situ processing of logs into lumber, a system which rewards them instantly. This however leads to loss of revenue to the state and land owners.

One of TBI-Ghana research projects, “managing natural resource conflicts: the role of actor-empowerment. A case study of forest conflicts in Ghana”, addressed the issue of conflicts associated with compensation payments for crop damage. The project came up with strong basis for the proper integration of compensation payment into forest management and the inclusion of innovative options such as farmer certification and the possible integration of compensation charges into traditional fees to ensure compliance. The project has also strengthened a new research line at the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana by capacitating a researcher to the PhD level in the field of forest policy. TBI-Ghana considers this as a functional way of contributing to improved and responsive policies for the Ghanaian forestry sector.

For more information, please contact: tropenbos@idngh.com

Evaluating land use planning in Kalimantan, Indonesia

Spatial planning provides a legal spatial basis for land allocation and natural resource management. Poor  spatial data quality and lack of coordination amongst agencies responsible for planning contribute to poor land use decisions in many places in Indonesia, particularly in Kalimantan. This can have severe consequences for forests and forest-dependent people, even more so because most of the Kalimantan area is legally designated as forest area. In the Pasir district, a GIS Forum has been designated to encourage collaboration between the agencies. This forum uses information such as thematic spatial datasets of Kalimantan, technical guidelines for GIS and remote sensing and spatial data and information about critical lands.

For more information, please contact: paul.hillegers@planet.nl

Legality of timber harvesting and trade in Suriname

Timber production in Suriname is relatively modest, with a total annual harvest below 200,000 m3, of which about a quarter is destined for export. Production controls are relatively tight and there is consensus that the problem of illegal logging has not reached the dimensions found elsewhere in the world. Yet, timber exporters in Suriname do not escape the increasing international pressure to demonstrate the legality of the timber they produce. Statements of legal origin issued by the forest service may soon no longer be acceptable if they are not backed up by a credible definition of legal timber and a system to verify compliance with it.

TBI Suriname and WWF Guyana supported the Logging and Timber Industry Platform Suriname (the private sector association) to carry out an assessment of stakeholder views with regard to legal timber and the need to have a national definition. In particular, the researchers were interested to know what stakeholders considered to be the basic elements of a legality definition. Of about sixty organizations identified to have a stake in forestry, a selection of eleven was interviewed for a preliminary assessment. These were classified into representatives of government, private sector and NGO’s/CBO’s. A clear relation must be laid between aspects of legality and national and international laws and regulations. An inventory will be carried out of existing control mechanisms that could verify legality. This inventory should also address available international initiatives that could support Suriname’s developments in legality.

For more information, please contact: ptltropenbossuriname@yahoo.com

Demography of threatened tree species in Vietnam

Affected by a tropical climate and a complex terrain, forest types of Vietnam are very diverse, ranging from tropical rainforest, mangrove forest and limestone forest to conifer and subtropical forests.  The forests of Vietnam have severely declined in both quantity and quality over the last decades for many reasons, such as long wars, shifting cultivation, transformation of forests and forest land to agricultural fields, and overexploitation.

Pham Duc Chien, a researcher of the Forest Science Institute of Vietnam (FSIV) who, in November 2006, got his PhD degree at the Utrecht University (The Netherlands), carried out a demographic study of six threatened tree species in four protected areas in Vietnam. This dissertation is a result of the cooperation project “Generating and disseminating knowledge on conservation and use of Vietnamese tree species” between TBI-Vietnam, the Department of Plant Ecology and Biodiversity of Utrecht University, and the Forest Science Institute of Vietnam.

From this study some important guidelines towards conservation of tree threatened species were formulated:

• because small and fragmented habitats increase extinction risks for plant species, it is necessary to increase the size of protected areas, and to stop activities causing fragmentation within these areas;
• strict protection, particularly for juvenile and adult trees, should be implemented in protected areas, meaning that any human disturbance and logging should be strictly forbidden;
• the improvement of seedling and juvenile growth (e.g. by controlled liberation) can help to improve population growth rates;
• enrichment is a good conservation measure in case germination of seeds under controlled conditions is better than under natural conditions.
• for the threatened tree species that presently remain in small and/or isolated populations, expansion of their habitat area through natural restoration would be a crucial conservation measure.

For more information, please look at the publications page or contact:  nghi.tbi@dng.vnn.vn  

Tropenbos Colombia activities with the local communities of the Choco region

Towards the end of 2006, the IIAP (Environmental Research Institute of the Pacific Region) contacted TBI Colombia by recommendation of the Royal Dutch Embassy and the National Science Academy, with the intention of developing a participatory research scheme to work with local afro-Colombian communities of the pacific region of the country. In order to accomplish this, TBI Colombia gathered a group of people, specialized in working with communities and familiarized with TBI Colombia´s work. The team also included a couple of members from the IIAP who are in charge of coordinating and guaranteeing continuation of activities. The three areas of work, previously defined by IIAP staff and the communities were mining, fishing and cultivation systems. Work consisted of three main activities: workshop with the staff of IIAP, workshops with the communities and follow up discussions and debates. By the end of the compromise, both IIAP staff and community members generated local information (from registers and other types of local gathering methods), analyzed the information gathered and were able to use tools and applications like social cartography as expected. The communities themselves would be in charge of documenting the process and the IIAP/TBI Colombia team would be in charge of editing a final report. The most significant conclusions were:

• Cultivation systems in Tutunendo. After gathering historic information on the cultivation systems of the area and comparing it to the actual situation, the people from Tutunendo realized there has been a degradation of agricultural practices. This has lead to the loss of diversity in the cultivation fields and to a high dependency on externally produced and manufactures goods. The cultivation fields, as they are today, cannot sustain the population of the village. In the past, the families used fruits to make fruit juice and the village had at least 10 guanabana trees, now there are only three.
• Mining in Tado. After gathering socio-economic information regarding the production of gold and its revenues in Tado, and comparing it to industrial gold exploitation, the community concluded that traditional mining was able to sustain the village’s families and that industrial gold exploitation was a threat to local livelihoods. The mechanized methods of industrial gold exploitation were environmentally aggressive and excluded the participation of village members.
• Fishing in the Golfo de Tribuga. The fishing recordings that members from the nine villages took daily were based on the basic formats developed by TBI Colombia with the local communities of the Middle Caquetá. After having shared, analyzed and discussed the information gathered, the communities concluded that they should continue monitoring fishing activities and they should work on fishing restrictions and bans for certain areas and certain fishing techniques. They also concluded that with traditional and social cartography they were able to establish fishing areas for local fishermen. The GPS coordinates gathered during the few months of local data gathering evidenced that the previously delimited fishing area, established by them years before, was never used. Local fishermen fished in other areas outside the boundaries they had drawn. With locally gathered information fishermen realized they would be able to negotiate with fishing industries.

For more information, please contact: comtropenbos@cable.net.co