Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

A summary of the salient features of linkages between
forests and livelihoods and how they have been changing are
provided in table 1.1.
Forests provide a tremendous source of natural capital
that can be used to alleviate poverty in two ways. The first is
poverty avoidance or mitigation, in which forest resources
serve as a safety net or fill gaps by providing a source of
petty cash. For example, the Tawahka of Krausirpi in Honduras
cope with short-term and personal shocks (for example,
a poor bean harvest or a sick child) through the sale of
forest products. The same community uses forest product
sales (for example, bushmeat) to cope with covariate shocks,
such as the rapid decline in cocoa markets following a drop
in cocoa prices. The use of forests as natural insurance is
important for forest dwellers because their livelihoods are
characterized by unusually high levels of environmental,
agricultural, epidemiological, and market uncertainty.
Moreover, the remote location of most forest dwellers
implies limited access to more conventional forms of insurance,
including formal credit and insurance programs.
The second is poverty elimination, in which forest
resources help to lift the household out of poverty by functioning
as a source of savings, investment, accumulation,
asset building, and permanent increases in income and welfare.
As a source of income, forests can provide a decent living
when markets are accessible, especially if a household is
involved in the planting, harvesting, processing, transporting,
and trading of forest products. These households are
usually involved in varying degrees of forest management
because such income from forests is seldom obtained by
Table 1.1
Changing Linkages between Forests and Poverty
With increasing commercialization of rural use patterns, some low-
input, low-return activities can grow; however, most are inferior
goods and decline. Some are displaced by factory-made alternatives,
and others become unprofitable and are abandoned as labor costs
rise. Gathered industrial raw materials tend to be displaced by
domesticated supplies or synthetic substituted.
Characteristics of livelihood inputs from forests
Subsistence and cultural importance
Forests form an integral part of the social and cultural
framework for forest dwellers.
Forest products supplement and complement inputs of fuel, food,
medicinal plant products, etc., from the farm system; often important
in filling seasonal and other food gaps, particularly in hard times;
forest foods enhance palatability of staple diets and provide vitamins
and proteins.
Agricultural inputs
Forests provide a starting point for rotational agriculture and
protection; on-farm trees also provide shade, windbreaks, and
contour vegetation; trees and forests also provide low-cost soil
nutrient recycling and mulch. Arboreal forests provide arboreal
fodder and forage, and fiber baskets for storing agricultural products,
and wooden plows and other farm implements.
Commercial outputs
Forests help diversify the farm household economy, provide
counter-seasonal sources of income, and are a source of income
in hard times.
Many products are characterized by easy or open access to the
resource, and by low capital and skill entry thresholds; overwhelmingly
small, usually household-based, activities; mainly low-return, producing
for local markets, engaged in part-time by rural households, often to
fill particular income gaps or needs; limited growth potential, but very
important in coping strategies of the poor. Forest products are often
particularly important for women (as entrepreneurs as well as
employees).
Impacts of change on forest livelihood inputs
Likely to weaken, but persists widely in some aspects (e.g., medicinal).
Can become more important where farm output and/or nonfarm
income declines. Likely to decline in importance as government relief
programs or new agricultural crops make it less necessary to fall back
on forest resources, as incomes rise and supplies come increasingly
from purchased inputs, or as increasing labor shortages or labor costs
militate against gathering activities or divert subsistence supplies to
income-generating outlets.
Trees can become increasingly important as a low-capital means of
combating declining site productivity and a low-labor means of
keeping land in productive use (e.g., home gardens). But increased
capital availability, and access to purchased products, is likely to lead
to substitution by other materials (e.g., by pasture crops, fertilizer, or
plastic packaging).
Higher-return activities serving growing, specialized demand are more
likely to prosper, particularly those serving urban as well as rural
markets; an increasing proportion of the processing and trading
activity is likely to become centered in small rural centers and urban
locations.
Some forest products provide the basis for full-time and high-return
activities; usually associated with high skill and capital entry thresholds
and urban as well as rural markets.
Source: Arnold 2001.
CHAPTER 1: FORESTS FOR POVERTY REDUCTION 17