Managing the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa - PROFOR

the region, and grassy patches within the woodlands are sometimes heavily used for grazing. The
miombo woodland comes into its own during the late dry season, when new leafy foliage is often
the only available source of browse for livestock. The relationship between woodland use, livestock
management, and crop production is highly synergistic: livestock depend on miombo resources for
grazing and browse; they process and transfer nutrients, from woodlands, via manure, to cropped
fi elds; and soils are often supplemented by composted leaf litter collected from woodlands. Miombo
is also heavily used for beekeeping. Somewhere around 100 million people live in the miombo
region, and to some extent, depend on it for income and consumption goods.
Household studies have documented the importance of miombo to rural households. The studies
show that poor rural households are vitally dependent on miombo woodlands because of their
role as a safety net, not that poor rural households are becoming rich by tapping into markets
for miombo products (or have much potential for doing so). Among these households, miombo
is providing for a very substantial proportion of total household consumption. This proportion
increases signifi cantly in households that encounter serious income shocks because of illness or
environmental stress. The household studies show that miombo woodland resources are a critical
element of the rural household economy and contribute signifi cantly to mitigating the impacts of
poverty. If these resources are lost as a result of deforestation or other proximate causes, the need
for alternative safety nets is likely to place further large burdens on public service delivery institutions,
already poorly equipped to handle the problem of rural poverty. Spatial analysis (for example, in
Malawi and Mozambique) confi rms the statistical correlation between areas with extensive miombo
cover and areas with high poverty rates.
In light of the role miombo plays in poverty mitigation, we examine the question of why these
woodlands are not better managed. The fact that miombo produces relatively few high-value
timber products means that it has not supported the development of much of a forest industry (or
related public institutions). The forest institutions that are in place have become largely irrelevant
for management, as commercially viable timber stocks have been logged over and management of
high-value species has been problematic. At least for the rural poor, miombo needs to be managed
for multiple outputs. This is not easy, both because the silviculture of managing for multiple outputs
is poorly understood and because the complexity of the management system is vastly increased
when multiple stakeholders have interests in managing for different outcomes.
Forest policies, institutions, and legislation are often disenabling, and are seldom aligned with
management objectives that favor the rural poor. Mostly, this has meant that rights to use and
access miombo resources have been retained by the state (even in the face of trends toward
decentralization). The policy framework may prohibit the harvesting of woodland products for
commercial purposes, except under limited circumstances. Even when there is potential for working
with local producers to improve management by, for example, improving their extractive techniques
or conversion effi ciencies (e.g., from roundwood to charcoal), the legal framework may not allow
it. A burdensome regulatory framework has meant that it is easy to be illegal. The regulatory
framework often does little more than improve the ability of petty offi cials to extract informal
payments. Devolution of control over natural resources to local forest users, while offering good
potential, has seldom been undertaken wholeheartedly. It is this lack of effort that has undermined
what are ostensibly promising policies for improving woodland management.
6 MANAGING THE MIOMBO WOODLANDS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA