Social and Economical Aspects of Miombo Woodland Management in Southern Africa: Options and Opportunities for Research

Peter A. Dewees

[Chapter 1]
Background

[Chapter 2]
Local management of miombo resources: an introduction

[Chapter 3]
Institutional change, tenure, and access to woodland resources

[Chapter 4]
Economics of the household, and woodland use and management

[Chapter 5]
Woodland management for the market

[Chapter 6]
Longer term social, economic and environmental changes

[Chapter 7]
Policy, legislation and macroeconomic impacts on woodlands

[Chapter 8]
Woodland research options and opportunities: a summary

[References]

Background

This paper is being prepared for CIFOR as a discussion document. The intention is principally to identify and explore different areas for strategic research with regard to social and economic aspects of miombo woodland management in southern Africa. The existing body of research into the management of miombo woodlands has been principally ecological and silvicultural. Most research initiatives have failed to recognize the enormous pressures which are being placed on dry woodlands in southern Africa, and have not considered the underlying reasons for the extensive modification of remaining miombo woodlands as a result of human impact.

Even in the face of considerable resource constraints, miombo research continues to proliferate. Donors and national forestry research institutions are increasingly interested in this area of study. The capacity for undertaking social and economic research about miombo woodland management, however, remains limited, and most of these new projects continue to focus on how woodlands should be managed, rather than on why or by whom.

Strategic research in this paper should be construed to have regional dimensions to it, that is, we have chosen to focus on a number of common themes which have emerged across the region. These reflect both similar and divergent systems of land tenure, different types of markets for crops and tree products, contrasting rates of agricultural land clearance, as well as a range of climatic, edaphic, and geographic characteristics which have brought about the development of multiple land and labor-use strategies. Colonial and post-Independence land-use and forestry policies have similarly had a range of impacts on woodland cover. The common theme, of course, is how all of these factors relate to woodland management and use at the community and household level.

Social and economic research tends to make forestry researchers nervous. There has been a certain hesitance amongst national institutions to undertake this type of research. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the public sector simply hasn't the resources effectively to manage extensive woodland areas vis-a-vis the large human populations already dependent on them. In the face of burgeoning demands for agricultural land, and for woodland products, there is a growing recognition in southern Africa that individuals, local groups, and communities must be increasingly brought into the policy and planning process if woodlands are to remain productive resources for the next decades. A growing body of evidence strongly suggests that the only way of preventing the complete loss of these woodlands is to empower local people to manage them, or to otherwise legitimize local management. Social and economic research is seen as a mechanism for informing the policy process in a way which can help to bring this about.

There are perceptual difficulties for many foresters when it comes to assessing the uses of miombo woodlands. The most economically productive miombo has been heavily modified by intensive use and bears little resemblance to `woodland' per se. Thickets of heavily-coppiced miombo species hold little interest to those trained to think about `merchantable volume over bark.' Even so, these types of thickets are often a rich source of livestock browse, firewood, construction material, wild fruits and other foods. Conventional management research has simply not been designed to consider these multiple valuable products or production from heavily modified woodland thickets. Social and economic research can broaden the scope of silvicultural research more effectively to consider local utility and management.

These two concerns, then, help to define an agenda for social and economic research with regard to miombo woodlands.

• First, rural people are already heavily dependent on woodland resources to provide a range of benefits. Empowering local people or otherwise legitimizing existing local management practices is seen to be the most promising means of ensuring that woodlands continue to be productive into the future. The public sector however is poorly equipped to do this, and lacks the basic information needed to make sound policy decisions affecting institutional processes at the community level.
  
• Second, conventional silvicultural and ecological research has failed to address the management concerns of rural people. If control is to be devolved to communities or other local institutions, the impacts of policy and legislation on local management decisions must be better understood.

These are underlying themes which recur throughout this paper. This paper is organized into several sections. The section which follows gives a very quick overview of some of the principal issues which relate to local management of miombo resources. It focuses on a general research agenda, and how this might be shaped by several specific research areas. Subsequent sections of this paper explore and develop a number of different research themes.

Much of this paper is based on information collected from extensive interviews carried out during visits to institutions in southern Africa between 20 September and 8 October 1993. Much of the material discussed in this paper is, or has been, the subject of extensive review in the region (particularly in national policy reviews in Zimbabwe and Malawi), and I greatly hope I have captured some of the dimensions of the debate and discussion here. I was most appreciative of the courtesies extended during my visits, and have sought fairly to convey the views of researchers met. Nonetheless, errors of omission or interpretation are my own.