Archives

by Dr. Mangala de Zoysa, Head, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ruhuna, Mapalana.

In the third world particularly in the area where trees are rapidly disappearing, policy has yet to be developed to grow trees to provide forest products, rural development and conserve the rural environment. The agreement between government and private sector is considered as a highly innovative step to establish and manage small-scale forest plantations. However, the nature of forest control and the form of ownership provide an essential link between forest resources and their use.

Evidently, leasing lands among farmers with financial assistance from foreign donors has expanded the timber production capacity of small holders in Sri Lanka. Presently plans are being implemented to bring private sector for small-scale forest plantation on lease agreement.

Sri Lankan forest policy and the forestry sector master plan of 1995 emphasise small-scale forest plantation development by private sector management. On the commencement of implementing the new forest policy, it is practically important to identify the pros and cons of small-scale forest plantations elsewhere in the world with relation to the potential consequences under the prevailing conditions in Sri Lanka.

Western Europe

As a result of increasing urbanisation and declining agriculture, the rural restructuring in Europe has repercussions for the role of forestry in rural development. The role of forest as a productive resource is diminishing, while its role for landscape, nature and amenity functions are increasing. With the change in economic activities, change in land ownership has taken place. Landowner types include farmers, foresters and forest-farmers and their activity level is ranging from full-time through part times.

Some landowners, who regard future prospects as stagnant or declining are prepared to rent their lands to others or consider for afforestation.

Due to diminishing prospects for financially feasible agriculture and lack of supplementing sources of income, many rural areas are often characterised by high unemployment, narrow occupational base, poor job creation as well as rapid emigration. There is often a large under-utilised wood and non-wood forest resources that can be utilised for small-scale processing, recreation and tourism, and for amenity purposes to create jobs and income in rural areas.

The purchasing power of urbanised people for forest products and services has increased far from the rural people due to urbanisation and more rapid economic growth in urban than rural areas. Therefore, if the urban demand for forest products and services can be transformed to entrepreneurship, it would improve business opportunities, employment and income in rural areas.

Finland

Forest sector in eastern province of Finland is the most important source of income and one of the most important employers in the region.

The forestry know-how disseminates from European Forest Institute and the University with the rich combination of forest resources and forest industries in the region has created the "province of forests in Europe". Only a minor part of the regeneration areas are reforested naturally. Clear cuttings supplemented by replanting or seeding being the dominant method. Natural reforestation is associated with positive beliefs and favourable attitudes. Forests owners seem to obey the advice of forest professionals.

Germany

The efforts to strengthen small-scale forestry started with the intention to gain self-sufficiency in forest products and to recover the destroyed forest landscapes. The interest in small-scale forestry is influenced by the increased demand for timber, which shall be supplied with farm forests. On the other hand, there is an increasing number of private woodlands in Germany with the structural change in agriculture. The increasing share of new small-scale non-farming forest owners does not interest in producing and selling of timber.

The Black Forest had been regarded as not suitable for settlement due to the unfavourable climatic conditions and the difficult terrain. Now, the Black Forest is a very well known tourist region in Germany. Further, the farmers in Black Forest region run their dairy farming and forestry with their forests.

An association of small private and communal forest owners in South-western Black Forest in Germany produces 98% of the timber of the district. The association take over all risks of sale by buying all timber provided by the members. Today only such a co-operation of small forest owners is successful in timber sale due to changes in timber market conditions under few big buyers and low timber price.

Sweden

Forest management in Sweden is changing along with value-changes in society. The empirical evidences shows that a sole emphasis on clear cutting systems is not suitable to fulfil the multi-purpose objectives of private small forest owners. To optimise the management for multi-purpose use there is a demand for more alternative systems than what is in common practice today in Scandinavia.

Ireland

The Farm Forestry Partnership Scheme in Ireland was introduced in 1992 in response to the difficulties the Irish Semi-state Forest Company was encountering regarding land purchase. The study shows that the majority of the farmers have afforested in excess of half of their holdings and that payments from scheme are making a significant contribution to farm income.

Austria

Approximately, half of the forest area in Austria is managed as small-scale forestry. Small-scale management units and changing ownership structures resulted with insufficient wood harvesting technology and low profitability. Therefore, joint wood marketing of more market-oriented assortments is emphasised to increase their revenues.

At the same time, mechanisation of wood harvesting system is emphasised to reduce costs. The forest owners have to lease their forests to the forest economic community for the sake of management. The forests owned by family-farm enterprises in Austria constantly produce wood from their forests for construction timber as well as for firewood, mainly using family labour. Construction timber is produced not only for self-consumption but also for sale. Firewood is produced mostly for self-consumption and used as bio-mass energy for heating and cooking. Besides wood, farm families utilise mushrooms and berries as forest products.

Eastern Europe

With few exceptions, Eastern European countries have a fragmented structure of forest property. In the countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Solvakia, the average size of private forest property belongs to the individual is about 2 hectares. From the economic viewpoint, the inefficient policy reform has induced high cost of management; avoid the scope and scale of economies; and reduce profitability.

However, from the ethical viewpoint, the policy reform has responded to several social constraints related to multiple sustained use of forests, preserving bio-diversity, public access, control of logging etc. For the private owners, the state forest service is rather a public authority than a provider of technical assistance and extension services.

The discussion about other opportunities to improve small-scale forestry through the co-operation with public forest service is given high priority. Based on a study of private owners and public forest services and the forest policy analysis, it was stated that; 1.

Modalities of land reform could explain the initial source of conflicts; 2. The conflict was a power struggle between individuals than an ideological debate over private forests; 3. The central forest administration has little operational or financial control over the management of state forest. It was suggested the required interventions of the Government such as: 1. Greater understanding of the private owners' motivation and attitude; 2. Better knowledge of mechanisms and institutions governing the legitimacy of public action.

Croatia

Prior to establishment of communism and nationalisation process 53% of forest was under private ownership. Private forests in Croatia currently occupy 20% of overall forest area. In the last three decades young people moved to cities and abroad because they could not find employment in forestry sector. Management of small, fragmented and scattered private forest plots are uneconomic due to inaccessibility, long skidding distanced, disturbed density, small wood stock and poor quality. On the other hand, other forest uses such as fruits, medicinal plants, bee-pasture, leaf-litter, and recreational uses are entirely neglected.

USA

In USA, non-industrial private forests comprise nearly two-third of the commercial forest base, dominating rural landscape. In Oregon, where non-industrialised private family forests comprise only 16% of the forestlands, the ecological, social and economic impact is dis-appropriately large.

This is due to the landscape position, diversification they contribute to forest cover and local economies, and political and cultural connections they provide to urban population. However, despite the important role family forestry play, their ability to contribute to the well-being of rural areas is challenged by industrial consolidation in global wood market, loss of family forestland to corporate ownership, and parcelisation and fragmentation of family forestlands at the urban fringe.

Approximately 100,000 family forest owners control 19% of forestlands and accounted for 29% of timber harvest in Washington. A variety of public and private assistance and education programs are available to encourage and help them to manage their forests.

USA has a special tax program namely 1. Exemption and rebates; 2. Yield taxes, and 3. Modified property taxes for small-forest owners. The tax programs are administrated at the local level. However, although landowners receive tax relief, the effectiveness and fairness of the special tax programs are questionable.

Canada

Community forestry tends to be small-scale in nature with one operation approaching 100,000 cubic meters per year harvest rate. The small-scale nature of the forestry has led to some innovative approaches to forest management. However, the community forests face challenges of poor market due to trade dispute with USA, depressed Japanese market, competition with Sweden and Norway.

Sustainable Community Initiative (SCI) of the Federal Government of Canada supports to increase skills and knowledge of Aboriginal Communities to build capacity to achieve sustainable forestry. The SCI is a partnership program with government agencies and private sector. SCI provides computer-based geographical information and the Internet to improve the ability of communities to plan and make decisions.

Australia

The management of private native forests in Australia has involved periodic removal of the best timber with almost no silviculture, resulting in low yields and degraded resource quality. Low timber prices, lack of information and uncertainty about future regulations has contributed to poor management. Recently, there has been strong interest in production of poles and saw logs in these forestlands, which has considerable potential to contribute to farm income, and high return on management inputs against plantation forestry. Recent legislation and codes of practices offer an opportunity for private native forest to be managed for timber production while allowing benefits of grazing and wildlife habitat.

The timber industry is facing shortage of quality timber produced sustainable from plantations. It was suggested that the current economic difficulties faced by farmers in the traditional agricultural and horticultural in industires can be lessened with establish private forests and native forest management supplying products to niche market.

Small-scale forest Farmers contribute considerably to regional economic activity in terms of forest products grown for the commercial processing industry. Financial return, economic viability and ecological sustainability are dependent on yield, species, growth rate, log price, supply contracts and certification of timber quality. Maintaining the real value of the contract price throughout the terms of the contract is imperative. An investigation shows that the small-scale farm enterprises would benefit from exposure to large market for their timber. Presently, the choice of farm forest species planted is more likely to be based on local demand factors, local knowledge and environmental factors without considerations for potential sales in wider markets. Therefore, the exposure to international trade can create benefits to the small-scale forest sector.

The saw milling industry in North Queensland is based on milling of high quality timber from local tropical rainforests. Saw milling is currently restricted to a small number of fixed-site and portable mills for private owned native forest. The increased use of potable saw mills in recent years do compete in local market, they are not a major threat to the future of traditional field-site sawmills.

Western Australia is traditionally exporting sandalwood. Declining and irregular supplies of natural occurring sandalwood have led to increased interest in private investment in Australia. Growing sandalwood in small plots of farms has been encouraged by changed legal status.

Asian countries

Japan

The average holding size of private forest owners is too small in Japan to continue management practices. More than 70% of forest holding size are less than 5 hectares. More than 70% of forest owners are more than 60 years old shows the ageing tendency of forest owners. One of the main reasons for not receiving expected income from forest is due to decreasing tendency of timber price.

Aged forest owners conduct most of the forest practices. They do not think of future management directions. Many of them have no successors in agricultural and forest business. Therefore, increasing number of absentee small-scale private forestland owners is becoming a major problem of Japanese domestic forestry. Over 3 million-hectare or 25% of private forestland area is belong to absentee owners.

They have laid aside their forestlands because of less profitability. More than 50% of absentee holdings have expanded during the last 3 decades. Forestry Cooperatives are making effort through consignment of long-term forest management, contract forest practices, contract harvest and sales.

However, majority of absentee small-scale forestland owners is not interested in paying money for managing their forests.

Therefore, government intervention and industrial efforts are recommended as effective measures to involve absentee owners under forestry co-operatives' management.

Iran

The small-scale forests especially in mountainous region have direct and indirect influence on rural development. The forest inhabitants earn their living from forest products, eco-tourism and animal husbandry while protecting their culture. Creation of attractive tourism and recreation centres in which small-scale activities have been identified as an urgent option without threatening the future inhabitation.

More than 1 million people are living in 1.6 million hectares of natural broadleaf forests in Northern Forests of Iran. Forest and Range Management organisation has been established with the Government support to develop occupation and living conditions of the rural families.

China

The forest coverage in China was decreased to 12.7% in 1976 due to the deforestation caused by imperfect legal system, unsteady property rights and neglected legislation of property rights.

The forest constitution in 1985 put an end to the deforestation stipulating that the forest trees and forestlands belonging to the state. However, ownership and right of users were confirmed.

The legal rights and benefits of the forest owners and users were protected while encroachment by individual or organisation was prohibited.

Managing the forest according to the law, Chinese forest resources began to enter a period of steady development. In the end of the last year, more and more forests have been turned over to family-forests and farm-forests.

Philippines

In Philippines, forested area has been overexploited resulting in large areas of degraded land, loss of bio-diversity, and erosion and harmful downstream environmental effects. Therefore, the export of lumber and logs has been banned. The real domestic prices of wood and wood based products are being increasing since 1990.

The country is seeking ways to develop community based forest management schemes and to encourage small holder forestry. There is a lack of materials, knowledge, participatory methods and extension offices to support to small holder involvement of reforestation.

India

Small-holdings and low productivity of land in agricultural sector in India cannot generate sufficient income to support farm families. Growing of multipurpose trees on farmlands is of special significance to meet income of such families. Such trees substantially contribute to meeting the requirement for fuel-wood, fodder, organic manure and wood. The women have special role in growing and utilisation of trees.

Men are interested in growing trees yielding marketable products to earn money.

Women are interested ingrowing fodder and fuel yielding trees to meet subsistence needs of dairy farming. The restrictions imposed by the Government on harvesting and selling of trees grown on farmlands act as serious impediment in farm forestry.

www.crescat.com

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries

Produced by Lake House
Copyright © 2003 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager