Forests and other natural resources are crucial to the livelihoods of millions of poor people worldwide, but just how important are forests in the fight against poverty alleviation? Can forests help lift people out of poverty, or are they mainly used as safety nets to prevent extreme hardship? How do different forest management regimes and policies affect poor communities dependent on these resources? Answers to such questions are essential in the design of effective policies and projects aimed at alleviating rural poverty.
According to the preliminary results of a global study carried out by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), poor forest dwellers depend on forests and other natural environments for more than a quarter of their income, equivalent to the amount they derive from crop cultivation. Firewood was the most important source of environmental income (20 percent), followed by timber (10 percent), plants and game. Such results may lead to an overhaul in the way existing tools and practices measure poverty and income, strengthening the case for more informed policy decisions related to previously ‘hidden’ environmental incomes.
CIFOR’s eight-year comprehensive analysis of the role of tropical forests in income generation (The PEN Project, “Poverty Environment Network”) has led to a global database with information on more than 8,000 households, in approximately 350 villages, and covering 24 developing countries – the largest study of this type ever conducted. Led by CIFOR Senior Associate and Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Arild Angelsen, the project covered all aspects of rural household livelihoods including land tenure, gender, linkages between deforestation and poverty, livelihood safety nets and markets.
Surprisingly, the project also revealed that the poor were not responsible for most of the deforestation: the richest 20 percent of households at each study site caused 30% more deforestation than the poorest 20 percent.
Poverty and forest tenure
Findings indicate that most environmental income is derived from state-owned forests, with very poor households often worse off in those areas where forest tenure is secure and well enforced.
“It’s potentially a story of marginalization of the poor,” said Pam Jagger, a CIFOR Associate and Assistant Professor from the University of North Carolina. “The looser or lower enforced tenure systems are simply easier for people to get into because there is no barrier to access that they need to negotiate. But this is something that needs to be much more carefully teased out of the data.”
PEN findings and REDD+ Policy
The study’s findings could also have important implications for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policy.
“Higher levels of enforcement seem to be an obvious necessity; at least in some cases if we want to ensure carbon stocks are maintained over long periods of time,” said Jagger. “But in some of these systems, because there is lower levels of enforcement, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It may be that these systems are working quite well in the local context that they are situated in. We need to learn more about the opportunities for the poor to benefit from forests, that are under these tenure systems that don’t fall under the appropriate box that we expect them to, and learn from that as we move forward with REDD.”
Painting a more accurate picture
Though there is still much work to be done in analyzing PEN data, preliminary findings have helped portray a more realistic situation on the ground.
As Sven Wunder, Principal Economist at CIFOR, put it, “We all run around with a picture of the world based on the kind of studies we have been doing. But it’s healthy to have them shaken by these global comparative numbers that represent a much larger universe.”