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Counting on the Environment. Forest Income and the Rural Poor
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... On average, reliance on environmental resources is higher in Africa compared to Latin America and Asia. Second, our analysis, as also found by Vedeld et al. (2004), showed a probability of overestimating forest reliance due to case studies biased toward surveying high forest-reliant households. Specifically, we found that studies based on a small sample reported a higher mean relative environmental income, an effect even more pronounced for NTFP and forest income. ...
A recent body of literature has documented the importance of environmental income to rural households in the Global South. However, this literature has not been analyzed to establish which findings are robust – what determines rural households’ absolute and relative environmental income? We conducted a meta-analysis using published articles that measured environmental reliance from the Web of Science, Scopus, WorldCat.org, and MPDI databases. We examined the effect of socioeconomic, demographic, and resource site proximity variables on environmental income and reliance. We applied a meta-regression approach and included moderator variables such as sample size, survey frequency, and the types of journal to control for variations in effect estimates and assess risks of biases. We analyzed 112 studies published between 1996 and 2021 that together surveyed about 52,000 households in 35 countries. The findings confirmed that environmental income matters in total household income: environment, forest, and non-timber forest product reliance were, on average, 25±11%, 27±16%, and 27±16%. The level of reliance was moderated by region and the type of environmental products. On average, the proportions of significantly negative, positive, and statistically insignificant effect estimates were 25%, 18%, and 57%. All covariates, except distance to the resource sites, were weakly correlated with environmental income and reliance, indicating no globally robust covariates. Thus, policies and interventions should build on regional specificities.
... During difficult times, people turn to lowskill nonfarm activities in an attempt to secure their financial future [40]. Progressive diversification, is usually thought of as an ex-ante strategy implemented by merely well-off households [41], also contribute to the total income of richer households [42] Rural communities in forested regions rely on forest resources for their livelihoods, including food, medicine, and construction materials [43]. Alterations in land use patterns can disrupt these livelihood strategies by limiting access to essential resources and undermining traditional practices [44]. ...
It is evident that the means of subsistence of the community have a significant impact on the management of natural resources. This study examined the socio-economic drivers of LULCC and assessed the impacts of such changes on rural livelihoods in Shato forest, southwest Ethiopia. To map the land use and land cover, supervised classifications were used. The data were collected from 358 household heads through semi-structured questionnaires. A logistic regression model was employed to investigate the dependence of rural households on forest resources. LULC analysis results showed that about 308.29 ha of wetland and 3215.6 ha of natural forest were converted to other land use types during the last 30 years. The findings reveal that a household’s education level, household size, distance from the market, total land owned, skills and social network significantly affect their dependency on forest resources. Respondents gave high rankings to covariates such as erratic rainfall (1.70), market price (1.53), low crop output (1.28), and inadequate infrastructure (1.24). These covariates force rural communities of the study area into two major livelihood diversification strategies. These were crop and income diversification. The study comes to conclude that, the extensive and imprudent use of natural resources is a result of changes in livelihood strategies to cope up with the aforementioned shocks. Thus, the decreasing nature of forest resources results in covariate shocks in the study area and needs serious intervention mechanisms to tackle this trajectory of catastrophe.
... It is calculated as the difference between the revenues from total sales and the cost of externally-supplied inputs (Tallec and Bockel 2005;Klemperer 1996). Added value can alternatively be presented as the contribution of an enterprise to employment, government and its investors (Vedeld et al. 2004). ...
Eastern African countries have been confronted with forest landscape degradation and the consequently growing gap between the supply and demand of wood products. Small-scale farmers growing trees on farm have been increasingly acknowledged as a major wood supplier. Value chain analysis studies pointed out the challenges faced by the smallholders, as they are commonly engaged in informal wood markets, associated with weaker bargaining power and market asymmetry. From the Social and Solidarity Economy lens, collective action approaches through farmers’ organizations can counter the challenges of individual smallholders, while facilitating the upgrading of wood value chains. Thus, the objective of this dissertation was to analyze the (potential) roles of forest farmers’ organizations (FFOs) in wood value chain upgrading, with two case studies in Ethiopia and Tanzania. Through a systematic literature review worldwide, the study first sought to provide a knowledge base for FFO research grounded on (i) the policy context within which FFOs operate, and (ii) the typology of their performance with reference to resource mobilization, commercialization of wood products and benefit sharing mechanisms. Value chain analyses of wood products from smallholders each in Ethiopia and Tanzania were the point of departure for the empirical work, consequently treated as the case studies. A collective of smallholders and individual smallholders were embedded as the units of analysis in the two independent case studies. The two-country study setting permitted the analytical generalization of collective action approaches to value chain upgrading and the development of a research agenda and policy recommendations. Grounded on the value chain upgrading approach, FFO business models were co-developed to assess the interlinkages between the business model and (i) the organizational governance and (ii) the implications on wood value chain upgrading. Participatory workshops with existing farmers’ organizations were conducted to co-develop the business models, while focus group discussions and key informant interviews served to frame and triangulate the contextual conditions. Semi-structured household interviews were employed to examine the perception of FFOs and the main factors influencing farmers’ willingness to participate. Binary logistic regression analysis and descriptive statistics were employed in tandem with thematic analysis to analyze the data. The global review represented 57 FFOs distributed globally across 20 countries, which were manifested as associations, cooperatives, and small- and medium-sized enterprises. Research in FFOs has gained scholarly traction in the last three decades, emphasizing the emerging trend of smallholders managing forest farm forestry plots across the tropics. The review revealed three categories of FFOs, depending on the extent of the organization’s product portfolio, the value addition captured at the organizational level, and the linkages to market channels. The empirical findings revealed that southern Ethiopia and southern Tanzania had contrasting regulatory framework for the establishment of FFOs. Given the existing foreign donor program targeted at smallholders in Tanzania, institutional and financial start-up support exist. In both cases, farmers were able to envisage an FFO business model that would allow product and process upgrading of wood value chains. The FFO was perceived differently across the two cases. The Ethiopian case study referred to it as a tree marketing cooperative, which shall facilitate the production of members’ woodlots and the commercialization of wood products of members and non-members alike at a timber yard in a nearby urban area. The Tanzanian case study termed it as a tree growers’ association, which shall facilitate the production of members’ wood and non-wood products, and the commercialization of members’ sawn timber to existing traders. Achieving functional upgrading would necessitate concerted efforts by various governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. The household interviews revealed that 74% (n = 185) and 90% (n = 190) of smallholders would be willing to participate in an FFO in the Ethiopian and Tanzanian case, respectively. In Ethiopia, farmers perceived it as a collective wood marketing enterprise. A relatively small group size with substantial monetary contribution characterize farmers’ preferences to undertake a joint business on wood marketing. In Tanzania, the perception of a tree growers’ association centered on social learning elements to improve wood production and find alternative buyers, while regulating fire incidences. In both cases, the significant factors influencing farmers’ willingness to participate were (1) household socio-economic characteristics, e.g. household head’s age group or household size; and (2) experiences with tree growing activities, e.g. price satisfaction in the last sales or difficulty in market access. The synthesis permitted the derivation of the following conceptual assertion: that FFOs have the potential in upgrading the wood value chains, as long as farmers can envision a business model of an FFO that accommodates the factors influencing farmers’ willingness to participate. Overall, the study demonstrates the changing narratives of farmers’ organizations in the study countries and contributes to the commons-cooperative alliance theory – the integration of collective action and cooperative management. Furthermore, the key findings provide the groundwork to springboard future research avenues, specifically to test the derived assumptions, and recommendations for policy and development.
... The empirical evidence for this assertion is documented in several specialized studies of international scope (Vedeld et al. 2004, Grafton et al. 2006, Stoll-Kleemann and Welp 2006, Lemenih and Bekele 2008, Boelee et al. 2011, Andrade and Rhodes 2012, Kothari et al. 2013, FAO 2014c. These studies show that inclusion and empowerment of resource users provides a variety of social benefits that reinforce their commitment to conservation and the success of their efforts. ...
This work is divided in three parts. The first is an assessment of thepresent state of performance in the management of the environment and the natural capital of the region. This section will identify the primary threats to sustainability and the challenges that the region faces in order to overcome them. In the second section, we will analyze the policies that are necessary to achieve high environmental performance with a focus on governance, multisector mainstreaming, the participation of the private sector, and social inclusion. The study reviews the debate on trade offs between economic growth and the environment, showing that investing in physical infrastructure and economic development, while conserving the environment and natural capital, is a viable and smart sustainable development strategy. In fact, it is argued that the natural capital is itself a form of "ecological infrastructure" generating valuable goods and services that contribute to economic competitiveness, income generation, and better quality of life, especially for vulnerable groups. The study ends with a short section of conclusions.
... The main use, however, has been in relation to forest products. Early work to quantify total rural household income in low-and middle-income countries (Angelsen and Wunder 2003, Campbell et al. 2002, Cavendish 2000, Sjaastad et al. 2005, Vedeld et al. 2004 led to widespread use of the term environmental income: "income (cash or in kind) obtained from the harvesting of resources provided through natural processes not requiring intensive management" (PEN 2007: 19). While the term environmental products was not defined in this early work, resultant studies provided useful examples of the valuation of these products (e.g. ...
The material relationships between nature and people are complex and rich, ranging from support to current consumption to safety nets and poverty reduction. The term 'non-timber forest products' (in many different guises) has been used for decades in attempts to group a wide range of products, such as barks, bulbs, caterpillars, leaves, and fruits, without consensus on the definition. Here we argue that a different approach to product classification would be beneficial. We propose the term 'environmental products' defined simply and eloquently as "tangible biotic and abiotic goods gathered from any biome or created through synthetic production". We propose a typology with six dimensions: product type, mode of production, purpose of production, scale of production, resource tenure, and biome of origination. The typology allows for consistent and transparent delimitation of environmental products useful to actors with varying objectives. We apply the typology to two cases, illustrating that the older terminology is no longer needed.
... In many countries, traditional coastal communities depend on the exploitation of mangrove forests and their resources, which represents a vital source of livelihood (FAO 2023). Human populations living in or around mangrove areas use this ecosystem as a reference for its social and cultural activities (e.g., recreation and ecotourism), but mainly for their subsistence and movement of local, regional, and even international trade, generating family income through numerous productive practices (estuarine fisheries, collecting shellfish, collecting medicinal plants, extracting clay, collecting firewood, among others) (Vedeld et al. 2004;Dahdouh-Guebas et al. 2006;Walters et al. 2008;Treviño 2022). ...
Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has been widely used and valued as a reliable source of information in the development of research on the various uses of the forest. Here, the socio-environmental factors that affect the traditional knowledge of extractivists about the uses of mangrove wood in an estuarine-coastal community in the Brazilian Amazon region were analyzed. The grouping of words evoked in semi-structured interviews with 108 local informants highlighted the lexicons that best express the use of mangrove wood. Factorial correspondence analysis was used to assess the intersection between words and age groups, helping to indicate respondents' TEK of these uses. Most respondents say that wood is used for domestic (family) purposes, mainly charcoal and weir, and that these purposes and applications were taught by the older generation of the community. The traditional uses of the species Rhizophora mangle, Avicennia germinans, and Laguncularia racemosa have been validated by the scientific literature through their technological properties. From this validation, a relevant contribution is to include the participation of users in intervention processes by using their TEK, making the planning process of preventive conservation strategies and management proposals more efficient, promoting the reduction of a future advance deforestation in this region. Likewise, such information is relevant to guide the social actors involved in the implementation of public policies, favouring the creation of new alternatives and solutions for better management and use of wood resources in mangrove areas.
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are essential for rural livelihoods in temperate and tropical regions. This study investigates the socio-economic factors influencing communities managing these resources through a systematic review of 3442 articles, selecting 21 with relevant data for meta-analysis. Using binary logistic regression, the study examines the relationship between NTFP dependence and variables such as gender, age, family size, education, forest conservation, public policies, social organization, marketing channels, and income. The findings highlight the significant influence of gender, age, public policies, social organization, income, and forest conservation. Notably, socio-economic improvement occurs regardless of NTFP dependence. To ensure sustainable development, strategies should focus on increasing social awareness, mechanizing resource extraction, providing financial incentives for research and training, ensuring stable market conditions, and implementing conservation-focused public policies. These measures will support traditional communities
Communal land-based resources are an essential source of livelihood in the rural economy of Ethiopia. In particular, the dependence of the landless people on the direct use of communal natural resources for their livelihoods jeopardizes both the resources they depend on and economic opportunities. To overcome such challenges, conservation of communal natural resources through collective action while addressing the food security problem has been described as one of the most appropriate resource management approaches. Thus, this paper explores how the livelihood strategies of landless people influence their willingness to participate in the conservation of natural resources. The study was conducted in five administrative districts in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. The findings of this paper are based on the cross-sectional data collected through structured questionnaires from 324 randomly selected landless households. This study extends the previous analyses by introducing a new method of analytical tool, particularly in modeling rural people’s willingness to participate in conservation. The results of ordered probit regression show that a higher level of willingness to conserve natural resources is observed if the household has access to farmland and harness resources generated in protected lands but with no access to artisanal mining and quarries. The study hence concludes that granting landless rural people access to farming activities and allowing them to reap economic benefits generated in protected lands promotes their participation in the conservation of natural resources.
The methods used to value tropical forests have the potential to influence how policy makers and others perceive forest lands. A small number of valuation studies achieve real impact. These are generally succinct accounts supporting a specific perception. However, such reports risk being used to justify inappropriate actions. The end users of such results are rarely those who produced them, and misunderstanding of key details is a concern. One defense is to ensure that shortcomings and common pitfalls are better appreciated by the ultimate users. In this article, we aim to reduce such risks by discussing how valuation studies should be assessed and challenged by users. We consider two concise, high-profile valuation papers here, by Peters and colleagues and by Godoy and colleagues. We illustrate a series of questions that should be asked, not only about the two papers, but also about any landscape valuation study. We highlight the many challenges faced in valuing tropical forest lands and in presenting and using the results sensibly, and we offer some suggestions for improvement. Attention to complexities and clarity about uncertainties are required. Forest valuation must be pursued and promoted with caution. Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). Published here under licence by The Resilience Alliance.
Exploitation of non-wood resources would provide profits while
conserving Amazon forests. Yet little is done to promote their
development.
The Centre for International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric, is the international gateway for the Agricultural University of Norway's (NLH) twelve departments, associated research institutions and the Norwegian College of Veterinary Medicine in Oslo. Established in 1986, Noragric's contribution to international development lies in the interface between research, education (MSc and PhD programmes) and assignments. Noragric Working Papers present research outcome, reviews and literature studies. They are intended to serve as a medium for Noragric staff and guest researchers to receive comments and suggestions for improving research papers, and to circulate preliminary information and research reports that have not yet reached formal publication.
Summary A three and a half days workshop brought together the UK, Mexican and Bolivian management team members working on the project 'Understanding small stock as livelihood assets: indicators for technology development' (project R7823 / ZC0167). The purpose of the workshop was to provide an opportunity for the team to consider the lessons from experience with the general approach taken by the project and with the processes of indicator development and to formalise methods for indicator development. By the end of the workshop the review of experience had allowed the development of a formal set of tools for indicator development (see annex 1) and application for both ex ante and on-going M&E of livestock development activities. These were favourably evaluated by a group of livestock development specialists working with Bolivian campesinos. 1 Structure of the workshop The workshop lasted three and a half days: during the first three days the project team worked together to develop indicators and field methodologies, building on insights from the August workshop and subsequent field and modelling experience. For the final half day the team was joined by a group of 8 livestock development workers working in different technical programmes within Bolivia. This provided an opportunity to share and test the methodologies and indicators developed in the previous three days. Monday 30th June: • Introduction, objectives (AD) • Progress with indicators (AD, SA)