Managing the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa - PROFOR

4.4 FOUR IMMEDIATE ENTRY POINTS FOR IMPROVING POLICIES AND
INCENTIVES FOR MANAGEMENT
Many problems related to miombo woodland are governance related. Improved relevance of
forestry institutions, policy and legal reforms, and building capacity in local organizations will be
crucial but will take time. While miombo woodlands cannot be expected to be a major part of the
poverty elimination agenda, they can and should form part of the agenda of improving national and
local governance, and of enhancing poverty mitigation efforts.
In line with the above analysis we suggest four entry points for improving policies and incentives
for miombo management. Given the diversity in the miombo region, these points will need to be
tailored and prioritized according to local conditions. In many cases it is unlikely that a single entry
point will be suffi cient—a portfolio of entry points may be necessary.
The fi rst two action points (“revitalizing forestry organizations”; “getting forestry onto the poverty
reduction agenda”) are cross-cutting and will stimulate support and recognition of all the intervention
areas mentioned in the previous section. The third action point, “redistributing woodlands,” will
address the intervention area for devolving rights and responsibilities for woodland management
to the local level. The fourth action point on “enhancing forest-based markets for products and
services” is aimed at the intervention area on increasing the value of woodland production through
market development. While this fourth action point has some relevance to the intervention area
concerning environmental services, we have not designed a specifi c action point for this area given
that these markets are shallow.
While the fi rst-mentioned entry point is forestry-centric, many of the others are likely to be
successful if they can be integrated into ongoing policy processes in other sectors: miombo use
and management is not necessarily about forestry and its institutions, but rather about how other
institutions relate to the use of natural resources by the poor.
Revitalizing forestry organizations
The very fact that miombo provides signifi cant amounts of so many goods and services—for local
people is also the primary management challenge for both local and government institutions. The
lack of responsiveness on the part of forest institutions and other external agencies to the realities
of local users, and a lack of appreciation of indigenous resource use and management practices, is
a widespread constraint throughout the region. Emphasis is still placed on commercially oriented
forest production and management systems, on regulation and enforcement, and on revenue
generation for the state (and sometimes for personal gain). Forestry organizations lack an orientation
toward service delivery and, indeed, have no clear set of roles in providing services to rural people.
Frameworks for more participatory management and more local control may be in place but are
resisted by those implementing forestry interventions.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for forest institutions in the region is a reorientation from their earlier
roles, which were largely regulatory, to roles that have a much stronger service orientation, aligned
with the poverty mitigation agenda. The poor must be a major client for them. This will equip them
to take a credible lead in the reform of legislation and policy, in the mainstreaming of miombo
use into the public welfare agenda, in the incorporation of miombo use into decentralization
Chapter 4. SOLUTIONS: HOW CAN THE MANAGEMENT OF MIOMBO BE IMPROVED
57