On the road to Brazil. Kate Evans

LIMA, Peru (22 February, 2013)_In the past year, Latin America’s forests saw progress and setbacks that will shape ecosystem health with implications for forest policy in 2013. Here’s a look at issues to watch in the year ahead.

Trends in deforestation

The first half of 2012 brought good news for Brazil’s forests, which account for nearly two-thirds of the Amazon, as the government announced deforestation in 2012 had dropped to its lowest point since the National Space Research Institute began monitoring in the late 1980s.

And Brazil was not alone. A recent report suggests that several other Amazon countries also saw their rates of forest loss drop from 2000 to 2010.

Though a slowing global economy has helped reduce the pace of land-clearing, research featured by the United Nations Environmental Programme and others shows that at least half of the avoided deforestation in the last few years can be attributed to stronger policies.

Land-use change from ranching and farming

It’s too early to claim victory, though, as Brazil’s deforestation rates rose again later in the year, according to the non-profit organization Imazon. Various governments’ goals  – such as Brazil’s target of decreasing deforestation by 80 percent from 1990s levels by 2020, or Peru’s pledge of zero net deforestation by 2021 – are challenged by the growth of Amazonian cities, infrastructure development, arrival of new settlers in search for land, and the expansion of ranching and commodity crops such as soy and oil palm.

“It is not justifiable for agribusiness to place additional pressures on forests when there are more suitable lands for agriculture elsewhere and improvements can be made on the ways in which lands are currently managed, such as for cattle raising,” says CIFOR senior scientist Pablo Pacheco.

“Some of these lands are degraded, but they may be restored and be suitable for more intensive uses needed to meet market demands.”

Because international demand for soy and palm oil and other agricultural products is likely to keep increasing, he urges the adoption of improved ways to manage crops expansion so that production does not lead to greater deforestation. Many eyes are on Mato Grosso, the center of soybean expansion in Brazil and Colombia which has led in palm oil production in the region. While impacts on forests conversion have been managed so far, both Brazil and Peru are likely to see significant expansion of palm plantations in the near future.

Understanding the drivers of deforestation is crucial for making good policy and enhancing land and forests governance. A study in Bolivia recommended that of the three main causes of deforestation – mechanized agriculture, small-scale agriculture and cattle ranching – priority should be given to policies targeting ranching.

It is not justifiable for agribusiness to place additional pressures on forests when there are more suitable lands for agriculture elsewhere.

Cattle ranching has also been the main activity placing pressures on forests in Brazil, recent research has shown. Brazil is the world’s largest producer of beef (only India has a higher number of cattle, but most of those are destined to supply milk rather than meat) and cattle ranches account for at least 70% of the cleared forest in the Brazilian Amazon. The practice has been expanding, involving large-scale ranchers as well as smallholders, so promoting more sustainable supply of beef and dairy while avoiding deforestation will be a critical policy issue in the years to come.

Impact of building and paving roads

Urban growth, cattle ranching and agribusiness expansion in Amazonia is also strongly associated with road expansion.  But it has been known for some time that the construction of roads and highways across Amazonia is a good predictor of deforestation.

A highway that would cut through Bolivia’s Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS, for its Spanish initials) sparked protests in 2012 that are likely to continue this year. And a second highway linking Peru and western Brazil, currently on the drawing board, has raised concerns about increased deforestation in that region.

“Highways in the Amazon have a detrimental effect on forests because they provide access to formerly remote areas,” said Amy Duchelle, a post-doctoral research fellow in Center for International Forestry Research’s Forests and Livelihoods Program, who has contributed to the study of the Interoceanic Highway in remote areas along the shared borders of Bolivia, Brazil and Peru.

Those negative effects, however, “can be mitigated through policies designed to manage land use along new roads.”

Compensation for reducing deforestation and degradation

One way to encourage countries to protect their forests is to compensate them for reducing deforestation and forest degradation. So many observers were disappointed that no real progress was made on that incentive  – known as REDD+ — at the U.N. climate talks in Doha in December. Questions remain about international guidelines for REDD+ in areas such as monitoring and verification, financing and safeguards.

Despite those international stumbling blocks, however, some countries are moving ahead with local or national REDD+ projects, testing different models for creating conservation incentives.

“Many are already successfully tackling deforestation with the help of REDD+. Much is already being achieved independently of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and in the absence of an international climate agreement,” Louis Verchot, CIFOR Director of Forest and Environment Research, said after the Doha talks.

Community forest management
Experts also point out that REDD+ is only one incentive. Well-managed timber production, non-timber forest products and environmental services can combine to create a promising strategy for forest conservation and local development, Duchelle says.

In a study focusing on Brazil nut and timber production in Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, she found that although many people take a positive view of such strategies, a number of problems – including theft of Brazil nuts, overlapping land rights, illegal logging of Brazil nut stands and the expansion of cattle ranching – must still be solved.

Smallholders and communities often don’t reap economic benefits from forests due to convoluted and expensive regulations. Richard Vignola

Allowing local communities to manage forests and their resources can be an important step toward conservation, but such schemes face many hurdles. That’s because many may lack clear title to their land, and governments often transfer only partial control over forests to communities, resulting in inefficient co-management, systems that place greater burden and responsibility on local people without ensuring clear benefits according to a study led by Peter Cronkleton, a community forest development specialist with CIFOR.

One positive sign, he said, is that people who have traditionally depended on forest resources – such as indigenous people, Brazil nut harvesters and rubber tappers – are gaining a greater voice in decisions affecting their livelihoods.

But smallholders and communities often don’t reap economic benefits from timber forests recent research has shown, due to regulatory obstacles such as costly permits and imposed timber management systems (species to cut, harvesting cycles, etc.) that are often not adapted to local conditions. This has often forced local actors to move into the informal logging sector.

To ensure good forest management in Latin America, Cronkleton said, countries must clarify “who has the right to participate in decisions about forest resources, how those decisions are made and mechanisms to ensure implementation.”

A local collector in Cameroon with a Goliath beetle – the 4th largest beetle in the world. John Fogoh Muafor

BOGOR, Indonesia (19 February, 2013)_Protection of beetle habitats in Cameroon and regulation over their collection and trade could help lift rural communities out of poverty while conserving relic forest patches in the region, a new study says.

The hardy insects are the most diverse of all living organisms in terrestrial ecosystems, constituting nearly a quarter of our global biodiversity.

They have long been harvested by forest-dwellers in parts of Africa for local consumption, some having a nutritional value comparable to meat and fish and others a higher value proportionally of proteins, fat and energy. And since the 1980s when enthusiastic beetle collectors arrived in southwestern Cameroon and started training people to identify and gather unique or interesting species, the bugs have been exported (usually after negotiations via the Internet) to Europe, Asia and the Americas.

John Fogoh Muafor, lead author of research carried out by the Center for International Forestry Research, the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), and the Cameroon Association of Research on Biodiversity and Development (ACBIODEV), says beetles have tremendous potential to improve livelihoods.

“Though trade and collection techniques are very informal, in some parts of Cameroon, many rural people have come to depend on them,” he said, noting money earned often complements main sources of income – cash crops such as cocoa or coffee – especially during the off-harvest season.

In cities, too, some business owners depend almost entirely on money earned through the local and international export of dead and live specimens.

“But in both cases,” Fogoh Muafor was quick to add, “the potential is far from being reached.”

That’s largely because the lack of legislation regulating the collection or trade of beetles has made it nearly impossible to do so sustainably or to increase the earnings from exploitation, said Philippe Le Gall, co-author of the study, Making a living with forest insects: beetles as an income source in Southwest Cameroon.

Harvesting techniques by villagers are rudimentary, he said, collectors simply stripping the bark off trees and then picking out the beetles by hand or with sweeping nets. For bugs gathered at night, fires are often set inside the forests to make it easier to see.

Foreign collectors, meanwhile, have been known to travel to Cameroon and return home with large numbers of beetles without getting legal permits or paying any taxes or fees.

This has resulted in both the high-level trafficking and fragmentation of the beetle’s habitats, threatening the survival of some of the rare and endemic species.

Fogoh Muafor believes, however, that changing mindsets, at least at home, should not be difficult.

Education about conservation of commercial beetle habitats would directly safeguard incomes, he said: “Consequently, protected and unprotected ecosystems areas could easily be promoted.”

Forest people highly depend on mushrooms, fruits, nuts and other non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in developing countries as food, medicine and income sources. In recent years, there has been greater recognition of the role these products play in rural livelihoods in Africa. Both conservationists and policy makers are trying to find ways to utilise these resources and support sustainable exploitation.

Only a few of these actions, however, relate to forest insects, and there is insufficient information to alert conservation stakeholders on the importance of effectively integrating beetles and others into conservation and poverty reduction strategies.

Authors of the study, published recently in the Forestry Review, urged Cameroon to look to the insect trade model of Papua New Guinea.

In 1978, that government created an Insect Farming and Trading Agency (IFTA), which controlled the conservation and exploitation of butterflies. The agency acted as a clearinghouse for trade in Queen Alexandra’s birdwings and other valuable butterflies (legally captured dead specimens can command more than US $2,000.)

About 450 village farmers have associated with IFTA to farm butterflies by planting appropriate host plants that provide food plants for the birdwing and other butterfly species.

Depending on the species, the purpose for which they are being raised, and conservation legislation, butterflies are exported live, as pupae, or dead as high-quality collector specimens. IFTA sells about $400,000 worth of insects per year to collectors, scientists and artists around the world, generating an income for communities of a poor country.

In Cameroon, many households and urban exporters are doing well collecting and trading beetles, said Patrice Levang, an IRD seconded scientist at CIFOR and another author of the study.

Though the trade cannot solve the many problems the rural low-income earners face, “It does improve the level of income of local exploiters, thereby allowing them to live in more comfortable conditions.”

This new publication forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and was funded by the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD).

Some communities in Indonesia have clashed with timber concession holders over rights to the same plots of land. Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR

BOGOR, Indonesia (14 February 2013)_Scientists have been sifting through stacks of case studies trying to understand why — despite all good intentions — some partnerships between indigenous groups and private timber companies in Indonesia fail, while others flourish.

Krister Andersson, co-author of a Center for International Forestry Research report Towards more equitable terms of cooperation: Local people’s contribution to commercial timber concessions, said many factors come into play, including whether concessionaires are serious about incorporating local knowledge (what species are most likely to thrive in a given climate, for instance, or who the real players are in decision-making) and the challenges of hammering out agreements that are mutually beneficial.

But when it comes to failed collaborations in this archipelagic nation of 240 million, the biggest culprit continues to been overlapping land claims, which in the worst cases have led to violence, he said.

“Property rights are critical … [and] a necessary condition for effective partnerships,” Andersson added, emphasising that these rights need to be clear and secure.

At the turn of this century, democratisation in Indonesia prompted the central government to shift more powers to the regional, district and local level, giving them, for the first time, the ability to directly issue logging permits to timber companies. But the legal framework on which to manage these new policies was unclear. As result, some communities have clashed with concession holders over rights to the same plots of land.

“In the worst case, historical customary community rights are not recognized by either timber concessions or local authorities,” said Manuel Guariguata, a scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research and one of the authors of the report.

“Then, rural communities may feel they have no choice but to resort to obstruction or even sabotage of the concession.”

“At other times, for whatever reason, the local government does little to enforce customary land laws,” he said, “or timber concessions and community-claimed property overlap.”

That’s not to say decentralisation and “good forest governance” don’t go hand-in-hand.

When strong and downwardly accountable local governments are in place to help enforce existing contracts, decentralisation can have a positive influence, according to the authors, who analysed around 200 empirical studies in a wide variety of contexts across Asia, Latin America, North America and Africa to try to unravel the puzzle as to why outcomes have been so mixed.

Andersson, who is an associate professor at the University of Colorado, pointed to Bolivia.

Rural communities may feel they have no choice but to resort to obstruction or even sabotage of [timber] concessions.

Though one of the most decentralised countries in Latin America, funding from the central government as well as monitoring and pressure from the electorate has helped motivate municipal officials to work efficiently, sustainably and with a goal of equitable distribution of benefits.

Ashwin Ravikumar, another of the report’s authors, adds that when central governments pass regulations and standards that boost the bargaining power of indigenous communities, the chance of success improves.

That said, he added, the challenge typically is not in creating such standards, but enforcing them.

It helps when timber companies obtain free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) from communities before operating, through clearly defined and inclusive processes that are mediated by disinterested third parties, the authors write.

But it’s important, too, that all members of a community actively participate.

Often self-interested local leaders have been known to make decisions that exclude the interests of other parts of their communities, a report by the Forests Dialogue says, adding that the intra-community tensions that result create their own negative chain of events.

“If only some members of the community are involved in negotiating the terms of a partnership, not only does this disenfranchise other members in an unjust fashion, but it also disincentives them from playing by the rules,” said Ravikumar.

“They have no ‘buy-in’ to the deal,” he said. “Outcomes like illegal logging, civil unrest, or even violence could conceivably result in the worst case scenarios.”

In Indonesia, the benefits of negotiating deals with the benefit of free, prior and informed consent has worked well, the report said. It pointed to several victories for communities, thanks in part to NGO support, including getting oil palm companies to restore lands to communities and compensating them for damages. They’ve also managed to persuade local governments, in some cases, to recognise community livelihoods in protected forests.

Despite all that, Ravikumar argues good governance remains fundamental to successful partnerships _ begging the question of what would happen in times of weak governance.

Frustratingly, here, a definitive answer has yet to be found.

While the scientists say they may have discovered a few “tricks” that seem to lead to more desirable forestry outcomes, Andersson says too little on the subject is known.

“It’s only by continuing to do more research and understanding the systems comprehensively that we’ll be able to develop policies and plans for community-company partnerships that are consistently effective, efficient, and equitable.”

Nevertheless, he adds, for now, groups should be implementing actions that build good governance. More pragmatically, forestry sectors should prioritise supporting partnerships in areas that already have institutions capable of enforcing contracts effectively.

While not a permanent solution, Andersson emphasises that the forestry industry is currently littered with cases like this, which could benefit from effective community-company partnerships.

This research was carried out as part of the CGIAR Research Programme, ‘Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.