Social and Economical Aspects of Miombo Woodland Management in Southern Africa: Options and Opportunities for ResearchPeter A. Dewees |
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Longer term social, economic and environmental changesThere is relatively little research which has been carried out on longer term patterns of social, economic, and environmental change in southern Africa. That which has been carried out provides compelling evidence that contemporary patterns of land-use and woodland cover are the outcome of much longer term processes. While the short term impacts of rapid population growth seem quite clear -- that natural systems are often placed under extremely heavy stress as a result of population increase -- longer term impacts are more encouraging. For example, a remote sensing study carried out in Zimbabwe in 1984 drew several conclusions about deforestation, suggesting that present patterns of land clearance had been established many years earlier, and were strongly associated with the pattern of agricultural land-use, rather than with extractive processes per se (such as demands for woodfuel):
Longer term studies, which have relied on historical and archival records rather than on remote sensing data, suggest that even amongst the most intact of woodlands, there is very little unmodified miombo anywhere. In Malawi, for instance, heavily modified miombo accounts for over 95 percent of existing woodland cover (Hardcastle 1993). Mature miombo in the Tabora region of Tanzania is mostly regenerated, having been agricultural land in the 1860s which was subsequently abandoned because of an outbreak of sleeping sickness in the early 1900s (Lawton 1982). These types of transitions in land-use are extremely enlightening for the policy process because they suggest that miombo woodlands are very resilient to many of the pressures placed on them. Much of the policy dialogue about the environment at the regional and national level in southern Africa (as well as internationally) is very negatively oriented: population growth will place increasing and inexorable pressures on natural environments, and there are few approaches which can be taken to mitigate the impacts of these pressures. Policy and legislation, rather than mitigating these impacts, has in some instances, amplified them. Longer term studies, can help to identify both the positive steps which have been taken in response to these pressures as well as the policy initiatives which should be avoided in the future. There are very few studies which have taken this approach. In Zimbabwe, McGregor (1991) pointed out that technical exercises to rationalize land-use, dating from the late 1920s, had serious and profound impacts on woodland cover. Planners encouraged the clearance of woodlands in upland areas for arable cultivation, and shifted grazing blocks to lower, unwooded areas. This imposed a reversal in earlier land uses, and greatly limited access to productive woodlands. In Malawi, woodlands have been managed by communities both under customary arrangements, and under arrangements which conferred legal rights of use as Village Forest Areas (VFAs). Legislation which gave recognition to VFAs first came into force in 1926. VFAs were an institutional construct which sought to give clear rights of tenure over local wooded areas to communities. Their origins in customary tenure were probably derived from the rights of chiefs to create small protected areas for hunting purposes. The protection of wooded areas as sacred sites or for production purposes for use by communities is a feature of customary tenure throughout southern Africa. While it is likely that community use and control of wooded areas extended beyond the constructs of VFAs, there is little information documenting these processes. By 1934, around 2,900 VFAs had been establishing, covering over 64,000 ha. Management consisted mostly of early burning, protection against illegal cutting, protection from grazing, and the cutting of tall grass prior to controlled burning (Hardcastle 1993). Although there are over 2,000 recorded VFAs still `on-the-books', most of them remain in name only. The system fell into disuse in the 1950s and early 1960s, as other priorities overtook the Forest Department and local administrations. In some areas, however, VFAs have been revived and remain an important tenurial concept. They pose some potential for the involvement of communities in the protection and management of woodland areas. In areas where communities have taken an interest, VFAs continue to be demarcated. There are several studies of the local management of woodland areas in Malawi (Coote et al. 1993a, 1993b). Legislation is currently pending which seeks to revive VFAs as management institutions. In Zambia, long before Independence, land ownership was vested in the hands of a traditional Barotse leader, the Litunga. In 1936, the Barotse Forest Orders were drawn up which laid the basis for woodland use and management into the 1970s. Under these Orders, the Litunga and his administration was entitled to revenues from forest management (mostly from the extraction of Zambezi Teak) and could reserve woodland areas for management. Outside of reserved areas, the Litunga encouraged bush clearance for crop production, but made special orders for the preservation of fruit trees. The Barotse National Government Forest Service was created to undertake woodland management, and skilled foresters as well as lineage authorities were responsible for the implementation of the Forest Orders. This reliance of lineage authorities to undertake woodland management was highly successful, and revenues from the forests provided a significant proportion of total government revenues. The Forests Act of 1973 withdrew all rights of the Litunga to own land. Though the Barotse Forest Orders provided the basis for the Forest Laws of Zambia, the lack of an effective and locally respected means of administering local management planning has meant that management standards have badly deteriorated. The impact has been severe: ... The withdrawal of the Litunga's rights to claim royalties from the forests and to preside over land matters drastically changed the peoples attitudes towards the forests. They no longer felt that the forests were for their own benefit. Chances for employment in the forestry sector became remote. They could no longer easily acquire farmland, they had to pass through a lot of Government bureaucracy... (The repeal of the Barotse Forest Orders) drastically transformed the people's attitudes towards the forests and forest conservation began to suffer (Matakala 1986). Two other studies from outside the region are worth noting as examples of extensive multi-sectoral investigations of long term processes of land-use change. Tiffen et al (1994) undertook a study in Machakos District of Kenya covering the period from 1930 to 1990 which sought to explore the relationship between population density, productivity, and environmental degradation. They concluded that `population increase is compatible with recovery from environmental degradation, provided that market developments make farming profitable.' Studies of vegetational change over the period showed, among other things, a great increase in the woody component of grazing lands. In Northern Machakos particularly, increasing woodiness was found to be an outcome of intentional conservation strategies, rather than a result of livestock grazing. Fairhead and Leach (1993a, 1993b) report the results of longer term studies of forest use and conservation in Guinea. Relying on detailed descriptions of their study area dating from the mid-1800s, they concluded that conservationists entirely lacked an understanding of the dimensions of local land and forest-use. Referring to the Ziama Forest Reserve, they noted that ... (R)ecent approaches have attempted to secure local support by linking conservation to socio-economic benefits for local communities, whether from (the reserve). . . or from `compensatory' rural development activities around it. These economic possibilities provide grounds for establishing `participatory' conservation planning (Fairhead and Leach 1993a, p.1.) Commenting on the considerable evidence of long settlement in an area which was subsequently reserved, they pointed out that this short term view was entirely inadequate because it considered forest degradation a result of recent immigration and other demographic and economic pressures. A series of wars in the late 1800s resulted in local migration out of farming areas, and into adjacent lands. Much of what has been reserved consists of extensive secondary forests on old settlements, and families relocated from abandoned villages still retain their long-standing claims over their ancestral lands. Local antagonism towards the reserve which has built since its establishment cannot be understood outside this historical context.... `Participatory' forest management will not prove possible until such historical claims to land and political authority are on the agenda. It is entirely inadequate to consider only modern economic needs and pressures, important as these might be (Fairhead and Leach 1993a, pp24-25). We have focused here on four types of studies of long term change in woodland use and management.
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