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Concepts: What is poverty in forest areas?
Poverty is multidimensional. It is necessary to consider which facets of poverty are most relevant in the context of forest peoples. Forest-based livelihoods offer both opportunities and limitations. These environments often have poor infrastructure and limited services, but also less pressure from overcrowding, violence and pollution that confront urban populations. Forest people’s subjective wellbeing can be strongly influenced by their emotional and spiritual ties to remote forest landscapes. Such factors vary from site to site, but in this section we can touch on some of the main issues that define conditions of poverty in forested regions. Understanding the nature of poverty and wellbeing in forests is complicated by the diversity found in forests, variation within and between forest communities, and differences in their rights and opportunities to use their resources. Many basic needs can be satisfied by forest products—for example, food, medicine, clean water, religious items, fuel and construction materials provide a level of self sufficiency. At the same time, the usual location of forest communities in remote areas means that they have poor access to basic services such as quality education and good healthcare. Forest resources can also generate income from a wide range of products, including timber, nuts, bark, fruits, bush meat and medicinal plants. This diversity allows families to avoid risk by switching between products as prices fluctuate or seasons change. However, forest communities often face significant obstacles to actually raising cash income from the forest, and people’s monetary wealth tends to be low. Some forest products are spread sparsely over large stretches of forest, requiring great investments of time and effort to harvest them, and thus providing low return for the labour invested. People living in forest environments typically lack information about prices and demand, and if they try to access markets, transportation expenses consume a high percentage of derived incomes. Because of the risks and high costs of market participation, families rely heavily on middlemen to sell agricultural and forest products. These intermediaries claim a substantial share of the profits. People living near forests also have fewer opportunities for wage labour. Sometimes jobs related to logging, harvesting other forest products, ranching in cleared areas or mining are available, but these jobs are usually short term and often seasonal. Social dimensions like cooperation, trust and low conflict—three indicators forest people often cite as influencing their sense of wellbeing—can vary widely among forests communities. They vary as result of: the strength of social networks, such as those based on kinship or market relations; the level of homogeneity in terms of ethnic, religious, socioeconomic and political factors; the strength of hierarchies and local governance institutions; the level of competition for resources within the community; and external pressures, such as those associated with frontier change. In some places, isolation or poor relations with nearby communities require greater self-reliance. In other cases, individuals may be highly dependent on others for their livelihoods and wellbeing, leading to greater social cohesion and cooperation. Trust and conflict mediation become necessities for survival. Where there is low population density, the ability for communities to split and move to new locations when conflicts erupt can provide a safety valve to relieve tension. Stable social networks are not easy to form. Isolation can make it difficult to build strong ties with others, when there is little opportunity to interact. Where people live in dispersed settlements, it can be costly and difficult for them to organise themselves into effective groups, further weakening the political organisation among forest communities. Where forest land or resources are valuable, conflicts within communities and with outsiders can be intense. In East Kalimantan, conflicts over valuable eaglewood had serious negative impacts on social cohesion in villages. In Pando, disputed or ill-defined property rights, exacerbated by high demand for Brazil nuts, have sometimes resulted in violence. People in remote regions can be politically marginalised, placing them at a disadvantage compared to people in more accessible urban settings. Remoteness from political centres provides reduced opportunity to participate in meetings, lobby decision makers, or comply with administrative requirements that affect daily life. For example, in Kalimantan, people from remote villages often could not participate in important meetings because the announcements arrived after the meetings had been held. While marginalisation is a problem, in some cases, the poor may seek out remote areas to avoid political repression or discrimination.
© 2007 Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) |
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