Forests, Poverty and Conservation: An Overview of the Issues

Belcher, B.

doi:10.1002/9781118428351.ch5

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Poverty reduction can occur through improved governance and strengthening of local institutions, and therefore, for long‐term sustainability, pro‐poor conservation needs to emphasize community engagement, institution building and the devolution of authority and responsibility to local people (Belcher, ). Possibilities and mechanisms for exit (or sustainability) strategy may only become clear after a number of years of successful implementation, although it should be considered in the planning stage, with possible revisions based on achievements during the programme (Young, ).…”

Section: Focussing On the Details: Seeing The Trees In The Woodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each year the world spends around US$126 billion of official aid tackling global poverty and US$8–12 billion on addressing biodiversity loss (Roe et al ., ), yet in neither case are these resources considered sufficient to solve these challenges (Roe et al ., ; Evans et al ., ). The majority of the world's poor live in rural areas (International Fund for Agricultural Development, ) where they depend disproportionately on biodiversity for their survival (Belcher, ). This relationship has led to the explicit assumption that conserving biodiversity can help address global poverty, and in light of pressing challenges, such as population growth, overconsumption and climate change, there is a strong need for further integration of the poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation agendas (Sachs et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Missing the trees for the wood: Why we are failing to see success in pro-poor conservation

et al. 2013

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Pro-poor conservation strategies are touted as a panacea for achieving biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction, yet there remains limited evidence for success in achieving these dual objectives. Is this lack of evidence a sign that the approach is failing or an indicator that we are not capturing appropriate measures of success? In this review, we demonstrate that the lack of evidence for success in pro-poor conservation can be attributed to focusing on the bigger picture and overlooking the details. This has led to two fundamental flaws, (1) an ambiguous use of definitions and (2) inappropriate monitoring, both of which are compounded by limited understanding between traditional scientific disciplines and which render true conclusion of success impossible. Due to the current lack of evidence, pro-poor conservation risks basing decisions on belief rather than evidence, repeating mistakes and missing opportunities to replicate successes. We propose five key recommendations that will facilitate the identification of successful pro-poor conservation interventions and the conditions under which they work. Adoption of these recommendations will ensure pro-poor conservation is built on clear definitions and engages in meaningful participation with rigorous monitoring and reporting of outcomes, aiding replication and scaling up of propoor conservation successes in intelligent and evidence-based ways.

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Section: Focussing On the Details: Seeing The Trees In The Woodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Missing the trees for the wood: Why we are failing to see success in pro-poor conservation

et al. 2013

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“…About 60 million indigenous people around the world are wholly dependent on forests and about 350 million people live in or near forests (Belcher, 2012). In all, a large number of people rely on forests for their food, fuel and income.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Value Addition to Minor Forest Produce: Gateway to Economic Empowerment of Jharkhand Tribals

Saboo

2018

Indian Journal of Public Administration

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In all, about a billion people rely on forests for their food, fuel and income. In India alone, forests account for over a fifth of the country’s total geographical area. Of this, Jharkhand consists of 23,605 sq. km, that is, 29.61 per cent. Here, eight out of ten tribals live in and around forests. About 60 per cent of these tribals are dependent on forests. Despite this, it is a matter of extreme paradox that nothing is being done in the state to utilise forests and its minor produce though things are being done to strengthen the horticulture mission catering to only 17 per cent of cultivable land. This article brings out the facts how ‘value addition’ to minor forest produce (MFP) can not only generate income opportunity for tribals of Jharkhand but can also add to the state’s revenue in a huge way. Till date, MFP and its significance on ‘value addition’ have not even been flagged as an economic issue in Jharkhand. For instance, products made after ‘value addition’ done to an MFP like tendu leaves is generating a heavy revenue to the state. If the same is done to other MFPs such as lac and karanj, it can transform the economic condition of forest dwellers in the state. Figures reveal that value addition done to horticulture, globally, is around 70 per cent but what has been done in India forms a mere 5 per cent. To cater to this small portion, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries has been constituted at the Centre but for forest produce none exists. In Jharkhand too, Mega Food Parks are being developed and only recently, foundation for an agriculture university has been laid at Barhi. This research suggests that the state needs a forest-centric research institute. Why cannot we have a Jharkhand Forest University on the lines of Birsa Agriculture University? Thereafter, the article talks about how amendments need to be made in archaic forest laws making community forest rights more significant. It also shows how panchayats have a significant role to play in the protection of forests. Above all, the study depicts the way out as to how Jharkhand can be the epitome of forest-centric research in the country.

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“…Throughout these calls, significant debate remained about who should benefit from an incentive-based REDD+ mechanism and what the incentives should look like. Many poorly-substantiated claims arose about who 'depends' on forests and the link between forest dependency and poverty alleviation (Belcher, 2012). Increasingly commentators were recognising that underlying who should have (or could have) access to REDD+ benefits were social processes and relations, which connect actors across vast distances between different material realities (Lohmann, 2009).…”

Section: The Diverse Imaginaries Of Benefit Sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intimacy-geopolitics of REDD+: Exploring access & exclusion in the forests of Sungai Lamandau, Indonesia

Howson¹

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<p>Indonesia remains the largest contributor of greenhouse gases from primary forest loss in the world. To reverse the trend, the Government of Indonesia is banking on carbon market mechanisms like the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) programme. Geographers have made significant progress in detailing the relationships between private and public interests that enable REDD+. Less understood are the materialities of everyday life that constitute the substantive nodes – the bodies, the subjectivities, the practices and discourses – of political tensions and conflicts within Indonesia’s nascent REDD+ implementation framework. Concerns for ‘equity’ rooted within an economistic frame of ‘benefit sharing’ seem to be high on political agendas. Yet, relatively few studies have investigated the basic principles and intimate processes underlying benefit sharing approaches within sites of project implementation. Focusing on Sungai Lamandau, Central Kalimantan as a case study, I consider the powers local actors mobilise to access, and exclude others from the diverse and, at times, elusive set of ‘benefits’ within one ‘community-based’ REDD+ project. Reflecting on over 150 interviews and ten months of ethnographic observations, the exploration provides a timely alternative to overly reductive REDD+ research, which remains focused on links between benefit sharing, safeguards, additionality, monitoring and verification. Instead it addresses the need to ‘bring people back in’, centring human agency within studies of REDD+. The sometimes violent processes of access and exclusion, which occur within the Sungai Lamandau project, cut across conventional bounds of places and scales and are connected by political relations that traverse realms of intimate and transnational geopolitics. The thesis therefore proposes a feminist-inspired ‘intimacy-geopolitics’ as an analytical approach that connects seemingly close-knit and disparate people, places, and events orbiting issues of REDD+ implementation. I draw attention to the outwardly ‘apolitical’ (or ‘a-geopolitical’) realms of the body, the home, and intimate relationships as key sites where geopolitical power is (re)produced and challenged. The thesis helps demonstrate the importance of dissolving the boundaries between the global and the local; the market and state; and the personal and political, within critical investigations of REDD+. Intimacy-geopolitics is used to articulate the inseparability of politics from economic, environmental and emotional geographies. Through such a framing this thesis uncovers the nuanced multi-local livelihoods of people as they adapt to violent upheavals, or make REDD+ part of a mix of options to clear paths towards more secure futures. While some farmers are able to counter their exclusion from benefits, others start to lose their precarious foothold on the land and must diversify their income sources as a result, with many bidding farewell to farming and forest-based livelihoods. The complex survival strategies, which this thesis helps make sense of, can be seen as both a cause of, and a reaction to, imposed social and environmental protections – a kind of ‘everyday’ counter-movement. I suggest that REDD+ rooted in market logic, competition and individualism instills in people a nessesity for exclusionary practices. Masculinist models of REDD+ will therefore not only continue to fail in addressing the root-causes of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, but will continue to be highly exclusive – disproportionately impacting women and those already marginalised.</p>

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Forests, Poverty and Conservation: An Overview of the Issues

Cited by 6 publications

References 31 publications

Missing the trees for the wood: Why we are failing to see success in pro-poor conservation

Missing the trees for the wood: Why we are failing to see success in pro-poor conservation

Value Addition to Minor Forest Produce: Gateway to Economic Empowerment of Jharkhand Tribals

Intimacy-geopolitics of REDD+: Exploring access & exclusion in the forests of Sungai Lamandau, Indonesia

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