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Forests help fight poverty

17 April 2009

More than 6000 Bhutanese households are managing community forests and it is one of the best ways to overcome poverty, a national community forestry workshop was told yesterday.

“Community forestry has a great potential to contribute towards addressing rural poverty since it is focussed in rural areas,” Sherub Gyaltshen, Secretary of the Agriculture Ministry, told the conference held at Namgay Heritage Hotel in Thimphu.

Today, 131 community forests are managed by local Community Forest Management Groups (CFMGs). The 6,608 households manage 16,379 hectares of national forest.

B.B.Chhetri, the head of the Social Forestry Division, presented an overview of community forestry. He pointed out that the limitation of land area was an issue. The area is limited to 2.5 hectares per member and the minimum number of households required is 10 households. The complex technical guidelines are also an issue since the community manual is a little complex.

Dendup Tshering, a Forestry Officer from Trashigang, mentioned the problem of staff shortage in dzongkhags and gewogs. He recommended posting additional staff in gewogs where there were many community forests besides posting qualified technical staff to dzongkhags. He suggested that marketing strategies be developed and the sale of timber from community forests be allowed.

Nidup Peljor from the ministry said there had been a shift from protection and conservation towards a focus on balanced conservation with sustainable utilisation.

“There has been a move towards a more decentralised and people-centred approach to implementation, with a strong agenda directed at poverty reduction,” he said.

Don Gilmour, the consultant at Social Forestry Division, talked about the lessons learned from community forestry in Asia. According to him, community forestry was a means to an end, improving forest management. It was also a mechanism to achieve improved equity and social justice.

Karma Jigme Temphel, a Forestry Officer, said that community forestry had helped many people. The Masangdaza community forestry in Mongar, he said, had helped the community earn more than Nu 0.6 million by selling timber and forest products.

A harvesting limit has also been fixed to ensure that there is no misuse.

“We have to ensure good technical support and have to monitor them. If they are not given proper guidance and support, people may overharvest,” he said. He said that there will be field visits from April 21 to April 27. They will meet the forestry staff in the field and the community forestry management group to discuss further, the issues that need to go into the strategy.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, community forestry has been piloted since 1997. By the end of the 10th Five-year plan, 400 to 500 CFMGs are expected to be established across Bhutan.
The workshop was organised by the Social Forestry Division, Department of Forest, with support from the Participatory Forest Management Project, Helvetas, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The workshop was attended by more than 70 participants yesterday. It will end today.

BY PHUNTSHO WANGMO

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Comments

One Response to “Forests help fight poverty”

  1. karma on May 17th, 2009 8:56 am

    phunstho wangmo a.k.a Dinosaur
    all your stories sound so realistic …. (actually it is real)

    bhutan observer
    vote me
    get me back with phuntsho

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