Essential Oils from the Alpine Areas of the Himalayas

by Appropriate Technology International

Partners:

Appropriate Technology International (ATI) Asian Network for Small-scale Agricultural Bioresources (ANSAB) The Humla Conservation and Development Association (HCDA)

Success Stories

With the creation of a legal community forest in Humla, one community was able to directly receive royalty payments for the raw materials that are collected from their lands. In the past, and in communities without community forests, the royalty payment is collected by the district forest office and this revenue goes to the central government, with no provision to return any money to the community of origin.

Once the Humla Conservation and Development Association assisted the Thali community through the community forest handover process, to get their community property back under local jurisdiction, they were able to directly charge a royalty on materials coming from their forest and pasture lands. This allowed them to receive a large (for the local context) new source of revenue for the village that previously went to the central government.

Once this happened and word got around to other communities that Thali Village had made almost $3,000 just for having a community forest in place, HCDA was inundated with requests from villages to help them set up community forests as well. This showed clearly to the communities in Humla that there is a direct and immediate benefit from initiating a community forest and helped raise HCDA profile in Humla as an organization truly working for the development of local villages. As a motivational tool for helping communities realize the benefits of community forests, no number of workshops or other activities could compare with the direct economic benefit of having a registered community forest with a management plan that allows for the collection of royalties.

Challenges

The greatest challenge faced by HCDA in this year was in dealing with a certain village group who, taking advantage of the close and open relation between Humla Oil and the supplying communities, tried to pass off large quantities of low quality material to the factories. Humla Oil had always assumed that the communities supplying the raw material would provide an acceptable quality to the factories along the lines of what had been supplied over the past two years and in line with the specification set out by the management and communities in consultation before the collection season begins. However, one community leader took his group astray and forced Humla Oil to buy material that they had purposely adulterated in order to increase the direct payment to the collectors from the factories. This community also encroached upon a neighboring communities forest area to collect material.

The challenge here was for HCDA and Humla Oil to deal with this group in such a manner that they would not become alienated from the project and company, while clearly stating that this type of dealing was unacceptable in the future. It turned out the chairmen of the community forest had misrepresented the provisions of the community forest to the community at large in order to personally profit from the arrangement. HCDA has since clearly explained the provisions of community forests to the general community members of this area and explained that in the future Humla Oil will not deal with this community unless they get their practices in order.

Humla Oil was faced for the first time with having to make cold, hard business decisions regarding the supply of material. Humla Oil decided to explain, once again, the quality of the material that they would buy from Collectors and stick by this criteria even if it meant excluding certain collectors/communities. This is the only way they can survive as a viable business into the future. This problem only came up in one village area, and this season will give a clear indication of how well they communicated their concerns to the community in question, and how interested that community is in continuing their relation with HCDA and Humla Oil.

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