Forest and Livelihoods
One of the key Millennium Goals announced in 2000 by the UN was to halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day by the year 2015. In 2002, delegates at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg declared, "Poverty is the greatest global challenge".
Forests are crucial to meeting these challenges. Over 90% of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty depend on forests for some part of their livelihoods (World Bank).
Through its Forests and Livelihoods Programme, CIFOR plays a key role in addressing forest and poverty issues. Its research of policies and practices to improve sustainable forest use is helping the rural poor improve their livelihood opportunities.
Forests and Livelihoods – Current Projects – West Africa
1. Landscape management for improved livelihoods (LAMIL) project – Guinea
In partnership with government, civil society and the community, this CIFOR-ICRAF-US Forest Service project is helping people in Guinea to fight poverty and protect their environment through greater use of sustainable natural resource management (NRM) practices. It is improving livelihoods by promoting policies and other initiatives that admit local input into NRM decisions. It is promoting sustainable agricultural development that integrates agriculture and livelihoods at the household, farm, landscape and district levels. The project is stimulating markets by promoting diversity and sustainability in non-timber forest products, At the same time it is supporting biodiversity by promoting community forest management that addresses the varying aims of development and conservation. These aims are supported through targeted capacity building that adapts existing CIFOR and partner research to suit beneficiaries’ needs.
2. Impact of Economic Reform in West Africa – Burkina Faso and Mali
This USAID funded (hyperlink to a page about our fuding partners / sponsors – if one exists) project is developing policy guidelines and information for decision-makers while examining how economic reform and liberalization in the forestry sector since 1985 have affected the lives of the local poor.
Some anecdotal evidence suggests the reforms have not revitalized forestry sub-sectors nor significantly benefited rural producers of forest products. But precious little data exists about the reforms’ impacts on forests and rural producers of forest products.
The project uses different and innovative research methods, including political-economic structural analysis of forest product commodity chains that identifies vested interests and examines local decision-makers, decision-making processes and the role of gender. In Mali and Burkina Faso, wood-fuel, shea butter and ligneous fodder chains are examined through field work and surveys.
3. Dry forests – Burkina Faso, Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia
In this Swedish International Development Agency supported project, CIFOR is increasing decision-maker awareness of how dry forests are vital to fighting poverty, as seen in the food, fuel, medicines and farmland they provide 250 million Africans. Without due policy attention to these forests, life for the region’s people and governments will become increasingly perilous.
CIFOR’s research is stimulating discussions and solutions by examining forests’ role in local livelihoods and national economies. It is tailoring forest management to suit local capacity, studying small forestry enterprises and analysing urbanization’s impact on forests. It is assisting policy makers with workshops and published research and building the skills of Doctorate students. The project is studying how global warming affects forests. It is assisting with national poverty strategies and engaging the international development community.
More on CIFOR’s Forests and Livelihoods program
Forests and Governance
CIFOR’s Forests and Governance Programme promotes good forest governance based on social justice, equity, accountability and transparency. The Programme’s research is aimed at providing the information needed to improve the ability of forest dependent people to engage in forestry decisions, improve the corporate responsibility of forest-related enterprises, help enhance government policies that promote sustainable forest management, and strengthen the forest research capacity of developing country scientists and partner organizations.
The Programme’s research targets key decision-makers and include forest users and dwellers, local communities, civil society organizations, forestry agencies, public officials, forestry businesses, stockholders, financiers and the public. Important global-level audiences include donors, development agencies, inter-governmental bodies, NGOs and corporations dealing in forest resources. The media, scientific and policy research communities are also important audiences.
Forests and Governance – Current Projects – West Africa
1. Liberia forest sector
Working with US government, ICRAF and other partners, CIFOR prepared an action plan for Liberia’s transitional government to help re-build the country’s forestry sector, ravaged by war during years of nationwide conflict. The action plan aimed to create the conditions required for UN sanctions to be lifted, reengage the wood industry on a sustainable and transparent basis, secure or extend parks and protected areas and promote community involvement in forest management of forest resources. CIFOR and ICRAF also organized Liberia’s first ever workshop on community forestry in December 2005 and are exploring how to bring community forestry one step further.
More on CIFOR’s Forests and Governance program
Environmental Services and Sustainable Use of Forests
One of the less obvious but vitally important ways forests benefit people is through their environmental services. Forests are crucial for regulating the water cycle and climate, preventing soil erosion, keeping rivers clean, recycling nutrients and pollinating plants. Forests also trap vast amounts of carbon which would otherwise escape into the atmosphere as gas and exacerbate global warming. Despite their importance, 13 million hectares of forests disappear each year - an area the size of Greece.
Research by the Environmental Services and Sustainable Use of Forests Programme is designed to influence global processes on forests, biodiversity, water, desertification, and climate change. It examines natural, secondary and plantation forests from the forest management unit all the way to the global scale, as well as the way different levels affect each other.
Environmental Services and Sustainable Use of Forests – Current Projects – West Africa
1. Tropical Forests and Climate Change Adaptation project (TroFCCA) – Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali
This four-year, EU funded TroFCCA project is researching actions and strategies for adapting to climate change under a partnership arrangement between CIFOR and the Tropical Agriculture Centre for Research and Higher Education (CATIE). Its aim is to promote adaptation of tropical forests to the adverse effects of climate change by assessing vulnerability and developing policy-oriented adaptation strategies. TroFCCA ‘s range of activities include evaluating how climate change impacts on tropical forests, developing tools for assessing adaptation strategies, developing criteria and indicators for adaptive management of tropical forests, and producing policy-oriented strategies for the adaptation of tropical forests.
West Africa, along with most of Sub-Saharan Africa, is predicted to be highly vulnerable to climate change. TroFCCA’s research into adaptation strategies involves national governments, research and academic institutions, and NGO’s in West Africa. Reseachers will also work with forest -dependent communities from Northern Mali through to Southern Ghana.
2. Semi-Arid Water Balance Project: Burkina Faso
The objective of the Semi-Arid Water Balance project is to increase understanding of how forests influence the water balance in semi-arid regions. The influence on both groundwater recharge and dry-season river flow is taken into account. Modeling land use and climate changes on a catchment scale gives indications how the water availability will change in the near future. These results will contribute to better valuation of forest ecosystem services, in particular the water services that forests provide.
The project period covers 2005 – 2007. The project is closely linked to the Sida financed CIFOR/SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) research project on “The role of trees in providing water services under climate change scenarios in the semi-arid and humid tropics”.
More on CIFOR’s Environmental Services and Sustainable Use of Forests program