Eleven Steps for Setting up Community-Based Timber Harvesting Enterprises
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Eleven Steps for Setting up Community-Based Timber Harvesting Enterprises |
An Overview of the European Union funded IRECDP Experience in the Islands Region, Papua New Guinea Nick Salafsky
Biodiversity Support Program
European Union - Islands Region Environmental & Community Development Programme (IRECDP)
P.O. Box 933, Kimbe, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. They are the responsibility of the author.
Production Credits
This overview is based on conversations with Ken Mondiai, Gary Thomas, Peter Dam, John Suarim, Joe Buli, Ludwig Taktaki, William Kieth, Wesley Reuben, and other staff of the Islands Region Environmental and Community Development Programme (IRECDP). The "we" in the document refers to the IRECDP staff.
This overview was developed and written by Nick Salafsky of the Biodiversity Conservation Network (BCN) in Washington DC, USA. BCN is part of the Biodiversity Support Program (BSP), which is implemented by a consortium of World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and World Resources Institute and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). BSP works to conserve biodiversity by supporting innovative, on-the-ground projects that integrate conservation with social and economic development and through research and analysis of conservation and development techniques and information exchange and outreach. For further information, contact:
Biodiversity Support Program
c/o WWF, 1250 24th Street NW
Washington DC 20037
Tel: 1-202-861-8370
Fax: 1-202-861-8324
E-mail: Nick.Salafsky@wwfus.org
Photos are by IRECDP staff. Comments on drafts of this overview were provided by Hank Cauley, Bernd Cordes, Jennifer McLean, Rod Taylor, and IRECDP staff members.
Financial support for production of this overview was provided by the European Union (EU) through the IRECDP.
Published in 1997
Islands Region Environmental and Community Development Programme
Any part of this booklet may be copied, reproduced, or adapted to meet local needs, without permission from the author or publisher, provided the parts reproduced are distributed free or at cost - not for profit - and credit is given to the original work. To reproduce any part of this book for commercial ends or in other publications, permission must first be obtained from the author or publisher.
In any use reference should be made to the "European Union funded Islands Region Environmental and Community Development Programme" and the author.
A. Introduction
There is a growing movement in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and other regions of the tropics to help local people develop small-scale community-based timber harvesting enterprises. These enterprises are attractive because it seems like they can help achieve both community development and forest conservation goals. If local people can harvest the timber on their land, they can enhance their income and manage their own resources. In doing so, they will be maintaining forest cover and biodiversity in the face of threats such as industrial logging and the expansion of plantations and shifting agriculture plots.
In theory, given the "win-win" nature of these enterprises, it ought to be a fairly simple matter to set them up. In reality, however, these enterprises are beset by a vast array of challenges. There are organizational problems in getting a village to agree on embarking on such an enterprise. Melanesian customary law can vary considerably within the areas in which the programme works, e.g., within a small area land ownership can change from being patrilineal to matrilineal. Customs and procedures vary as land is usually owned on a clan basis and not by the State. There can be legal problems in getting authority to incorporate. Training problems in developing the skills of workers in the enterprise. Technical difficulties in determining what equipment to purchase and how to keep it working. Transport problems in getting the timber out of the forest. Marketing problems in finding buyers who will pay fair prices for the timber. Ecological problems in maintaining a sustainable harvest level and ensuring adequate regeneration. Social problems in keeping community members involved in the enterprise. And even if all these problems are solved, these enterprises can be destroyed by their own success if there are disagreements as to what to do with the profits.
To smooth out these challenges, the European Union through its Islands Regional Environment and Community Development Programme (IRECDP) has for the past three years developed a support network to help start and nurture these fledgling enterprises. Through trial and error, we have developed a step-by-step process for guiding these enterprise groups through their formative and developmental phases. In this overview, we present these steps in the hopes that:
- You can benefit from learning about the work that we have done, and
- You will be inspired to comment on our process and share with us the lessons that you may have learned in your work.
Our process is tailored for the specific conditions in the area in which we are working in New Britain, PNG. It will undoubtedly need to be modified to be applied in other regions of the world - indeed we ourselves adapt it to the site-specific conditions at each project that we begin. In addition, it is important to recognize that the large investment in training and equipment that we make in each enterprise is made possible by the financial support that our Programme receives from the European Union (EU). Other programmes may not have the same level of financial and human resources that enables us to subsidize the start-up costs of these enterprises.
Nonetheless, we are pleased to say that this process works. As of January 1997, we have applied it with 18 Groups from which we now have 2 that are independently functioning and another 12 that are moving along through the process. Although it is still too early to know for sure whether these enterprises will function on their own, the future looks bright.
B. The IREDCP Programme
The Islands Region of PNG is an area of outstanding natural beauty and high biodiversity. The Region is currently under threat from environmentally damaging, improperly regulated and non-sustainable logging operations. Unless action is taken quickly, the Region is at risk of losing very valuable forestry resources and of having virtually nothing of long term value in return.Local landowners have not seen alternatives to logging as a source of cash income and, out of ignorance, enter into highly unfavourable contracts with some foreign logging companies. The landowners are commonly unaware of the importance of the environment and of the opportunities they have for benefiting from it on a sustainable basis. As no alternative is evident, areas of outstanding ecological and cultural interest are at risk of being spoiled.
In order to address these issues the government of Papua New Guinea approached the European Union to fund the IRECDP. This was agreed and the work formally started in May 1995, with the Department of Environment and Conservation as the 'umbrella' organisation. The IRECDP works directly with local landowner groups within the programme area which initially is the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.
The programme has several fields of intervention, including
- Village based eco-forestry involving selective harvesting and sawmilling
- The marketing of processed forest products from sustainable sources
- Support for other village based and managed activities including ecotourism and insect farming
- Environmental conservation and environmental awareness.
C. The Eleven Steps to Success
These steps are the procedures that the Programme follows when assessing individual projects and applications. The procedure is necessary since the number of requests can be high, and the issues involved complex. These are by no means iron clad but are a general guide and no doubt they will be changed and added to as experience teaches us how to improve our efficiency. For each of the following steps, we describe:Action: What the step entails.
Rationale: Why we undertake this step.
Examples: Stories illustrating this step.
The steps are also illustrated in the flowchart in Figure 1. The "% Yes" signs in each step of the flowchart illustrate the number of Groups that remain in the process at the end of that step out of the total number of initial letters that we receive (100% in Step 1). Table 1 at the end of this section also outlines our estimates at the subsidy cost per Group required for each step of the process.
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