Small-scale plantation forestry and actor’s inclusiveness in decision making on tax regimes

Abstract

Globally, forest-based bioeconomy is expected to create alternative raw material and products to oil based products. Small-scale tree growers have become increasingly important producers of timber and other forest products. Small-scale plantation forestry has been accounting for an increasing share of the national timber supply since the beginning of the 2000s, especially in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. Our research findings expose several inconsistencies in locally implemented tax rules in timber trade, which may discourage further investments in tree planting and timber trade. Further, our empirical data shows how government agencies control the decision-making process on taxes, levies, and charges. The concerns related to small-scale investments and timber trade are not recognized within decision making: Small- scale non-state actors may be consulted for comments, but the taxation authorities retain control over the final decisions and do not openly share information. One-sided decision-making leads to lack of actors’ inclusion and disappointment in financial performance. In addition, distrust between local level actors connected to small-scale forestry, where small-scale forest owners do not seek to engage with development as a process of social change, has created marginal and subordinate groups in plantation forestry. Based on our study in Tanzania, we conclude that the inclusion of the forest owners to the decision-making process for determining these taxes is needed not as form of discrete technocratic interventions but as underlying process of social change and potential home for democratic structures.