Community Forestry in Bhutan contributes to poverty reduction while maintaining the sustainability o

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Community Forestry in Bhutan contributes to
poverty reduction while maintaining the
sustainability of the resources!

• Karma Jigme Temphel (SFD)
• Hans J.J. Beukeboom (Helvetas)

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Map Flag of Bhutan
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Presentation

• Background Information
• Community Forestry in Bhutan (history and
  institutional set-up)
• Potential of Community Forestry Income
  generation environment
• Bottlenecks
• Future directions

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Bhutan Forest Information

• Bhutan has about 72 forest cover
• About 35 is national park and corridors
• 8 under Forest Management Units
• Remaining 57 under Government Reserved Forest
• 60 of the country has to remain under forest!
• Currently less than 1 under Community Forest
  management

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Community Forestry (CF) in Bhutan

• Social Forestry started in 1979 with a Royal
  Degree
• CF/SF reflected in the FNC Act 1995
• CF program since 2000 in the Forest and Nature
  Conservation Rules (last revision in September
  2006)
• All rural house holds have access to (subsidized)
  timber for house construction, maintenance and
  fuelwood (rural timber supply)
• Now 51 CFs approved covering about 5,063 ha with
  2,480 hh involved. Many more in several stages
  of preparation

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Institutional Set-up

• Department of Forestry (DoF) under the Ministry
  of Agriculture
• Social Forestry Division (under DoF) in charge of
  ALL participatory forestry activities
• At field (regional) level
• Territorial forestry
• District forestry (extension services)
• Park managers
• Decentralization and democratization process is
  on-going

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Community Forestry - Recent Development

• Forest areas around villages can be allotted as
  Community Forestry
• Capacity of the forestry staff to implement CF
  programmes is partly strengthened
• The NWFP development in community forests
  increased
• Documention of Community Forests development
  activities
• Increased attention/support for the economic
  aspects of CF
• CF is seen as a key program to reduce poverty (a
  priority!)

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CF area with good forests
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CF area which is partly degraded
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Goals of Community Forestry

• Production to maintain or improve the
  sustainable supply of forest products and
  services in order to enhance self sufficiency and
  the household economies and living standards of
  rural people
• Protection to maintain or improve the biological
  and ecological function of forest land
• Equity to maintain or improve communal
  institutions that can sustainably manage forest
  resources and ensure equitable decision making,
  implementation, and distribution of benefits

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Potential of Community Forestry (1)

• Potential Area
• 69 of population is rural (95,178 rural hh)
• Total forest area is about 2,904,522 ha
• Max CF (2.5 ha per hh) 237,944
• It can be said that max. 10 of the forest area
  can become Community Forestry
• Management plans are for 10 years and renewable
• In the next few years about 300 CFs with 15,000
  hh covering about 45 km2

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Potential of Community Forestry (2)

• Bhutan is committed to the MDGs
• Relevant for CF are no 1 and 7
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Focus of 10th Five Year Plan is Poverty Reduction
• Through CF program 69 of the population can be
  reached!

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CF and Income Generation (1)

• Easier access to Timber
• Access to NWFP
• Strengthening of CFMGs (Community Forest
  Management Groups)
• Establishment of saving groups
• Possibility of sale of timber and NWFP
• Time saving as process to obtain permits through
  Government is lengthy process
• Possibility of establishment of Community
  Enterprises based on Forest Resources

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CF and Income Generation, some data
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Some more income data

• Incense collection from Laya 72/hh/yr
• Chirata in Samdrup 62/hh/yr
• Timber in Tang 84/hh/yr
• Timber in Monggar 142/hh/yr
• Bamboo in Wamang 139/hh/yr

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CF and Timber
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CF and Income Generation (2)

• So far only a few (10) CF can harvest timber due
  to
• Many areas are partly degraded
• Initial reluctance of the Forest Department, but
  now process has been clarified and 2 CFs will
  start the sale of timber
• Communities should supply their own needs before
  they can sell
• Through silviculture improvement there is an
  (future) potential
• Communities often prefer to keep the timber

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Medicinal Plants
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Bamboos have many uses Wamanang Community can
make 139/hh/year from Bamboo
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CF and environment

• Community rehabilitate degraded areas
• Communities protect water sources
• So far they harvest carefully as per Mgnt Plan
• Reduced fire incidents
• Patrolling against illegal activities
• Most of the CF management plans have
  protection in their objectives

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What was done so far to support CF

• CF manuals (4 parts)
• In-service training
• CF management planning
• Conflict Management and Facilitation
• Silviculture
• GPS-GIS
• Enterprise development
• Silviculture manual and posters
• Four draft guidelines for NWFP management (and
  more in pipeline)
• CF brochure and posters to create awareness

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Extension Materials
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Bottlenecks

• Limited capacity at field level to address the
  opportunities and constraints related to
  economics
• Initial some hesitation of DoF to allow
  communities to sell timber
• Limited documentation, especially on economic
  aspects of CF
• Limited materials on NFWP

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Future

• Increase capacity building related to all aspects
  of CF (e.g. marketing, product development etc.)
• Formation of Regional Associations to improve the
  access to markets
• Strengthen Local Institutions (CF contributes to
  empowerment)
• Increase economic activities (both for timber and
  NWFP)
• More CFs will be established with focus on
  economic benefit (especially NWFP)
• Explore markets, especially for NWFP

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TASHI DELEK