Commonwealth Forests

bullet1 Chapter 8 Challenges and opportunities in Commonwealth forestry

bullet2 CHALLENGES

The challenges facing Commonwealth foresters are largely the same as are faced by their colleagues world-wide, except that their impact and the emphasis given to them may differ.

The two main forestry-related challenges facing the world today are the amelioration of climate change and its impacts, and the role of forests in alleviating poverty.  The impacts of climate change on forests may be bio-physical (such as shifts in the distribution of forest species, or the effect on levels), or socio-economic (such as effects on yields of timber or other forest growth from higher CO2 products). Forests have a major role in positively or negatively influencing climate change through carbon sequestration or release when forests are cleared, and because the forests will themselves be affected by it.  And the rises in sea levels associated with global warming will affect Commonwealth countries especially - not just the small island developing states but also many low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

The contribution of forests to poverty alleviation is important to many countries in the Commonwealth with low income per head.  It may consist of food such as fruits, grazing, or the collection of non-wood forest products for sale – all of which may be especially important for disadvantaged groups. In unforeseen crises or emergencies the resources of the forest may act as a “safety net” for families or communities. And climate change is likely to affect the poor the most, for example through flooding of the low-lying areas where they often live, or salinisation of the poor soils on which they rely for cultivation.

But forests (and woodlands, scrub, and trees on farms do not contribute solely to poverty amelioration but also to sustainable rural livelihoods in the form of daily household needs, or income from formal employment or informal trading.  Such contributions are often seasonal.

A third important challenge facing all foresters, which has become apparent in preparing this review of forestry in the Commonwealth, is the lack of reliable and current data on forests and the forestry sector, including forest products - and it is not only confined to countries with developing economies.  All of the challenges described below are affected to a greater or lesser extent by lack of data and information, which seriously impairs the possibility of developing plans or policies to address a particular issue. And the development of systems for data collection could contribute to the valuation and marketing of intangible benefits.

The challenges facing those who manage the forest resources of the Commonwealth include the following:

  1. Deforestation, where not only do the countries of the Commonwealth appear to have an increasing rate of deforestation - which is both higher than the global rate and has accelerated, whereas the global rate appears to have slowed.  Certain African and South Asian Commonwealth countries are particularly affected.

  2. The high rate of deforestation is reflected in the loss of primary forest types in Papua New Guinea but to a lesser extent in certain African and South Asian countries.

  3. Tropical dry forest formations are important for the provision of a wide range of benefits to the poor, and represent a high proportion of the forest types in several low-income Commonwealth countries, yet their conservation and research and development of sound management practices have been neglected.

  4. Deforestation is matched to a certain extent by afforestation in Commonwealth countries, and the rate of planting seems to be increasing slightly in recent years. But plantations make up only 1.8% of the 2005 Commonwealth forests, compared with a global average of 3.5% and plantations compensated for only 7% of 2000-2005 deforestation in the Commonwealth, compared with 35% world-wide.   

  5. Decentralisation of authority and the devolution of responsibility for people's involvement in the planning and management of the forest estate are challenges for several Commonwealth countries.

  6. It appears that more Commonwealth forests are covered by valid working plan than was the case twenty years ago, 41 Commonwealth countries are members of one or more of the Criteria and Indicators Processes and 17% of the area of Commonwealth forests is certified under one scheme or another. Nevertheless evidence that sustainable management of Commonwealth forests is being generally practised is still lacking.

  7. There is even less information on the conservation of forests, but there are, however, examples of Commonwealth countries establishing forest conservation areas and of acting in partnership to establish cross-boundary protected areas.

  8. Illegal logging (mainly in tropical countries) and the control of forest fi res (almost everywhere) are increasingly seen as serious constraints to sustainable forest management, as are general issues of forest law, enforcement and governance.

The preponderance of fuelwood in Commonwealth wood consumption shows the need to develop sustainable supplies, especially in dry areas, as a contribution to poverty alleviation, sustainable livelihoods and zero carbon emissions.  The challenges facing Commonwealth forest researchers include:

  1. The considerable challenge of developing mechanisms to both adapt forests to the effects of climate change, and contribute to its amelioration.  Among the former will be the adaptation of forest systems (including plantations) to drought and the increased risk of fi re and pest attack, the maintenance of forest biological diversity, and the development of forest management practices to maintain or increase water catchment yields.  The contribution to the latter is in the form of carbon sequestration.

  2. Contributing more directly to informed policy-making and planning. To do this it will increasingly need to move towards social, economic and political concerns in addition to its traditional strength in silviculture and ecology.  

  3. But these technical challenges cannot be faced unless the funding of forest research in all Commonwealth countries improves, accompanied by the strengthening of human resources in terms both of staff numbers and training.

Those responsible for forestry education face the challenge of declining student numbers – which is occurring largely throughout the Commonwealth – and the adaptation of programmes to reflect not only forestry and environmental topics but also forestry issues related to the socio-economic situation in individual countries.  Another challenge for several Commonwealth universities is that forestry is seen as technical training for the academically less-gifted; changing this perception will not be easy.