Overused, undervalued

© Stringer/Corbis

Overused,
undervalued

Frances Seymour
Director-General,

Center for International Forestry Research

This should be a banner year for the world’s forests.
2011, the United Nation’s International Year of Forests,
was preceded by the auspicious agreement on reducing
emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
(REDD) at December’s UNFCCC’s COP16 in Cancun,
launching a long-sought mechanism to integrate
forests into the global climate protection regime.
The world’s forests should also be well positioned to take
advantage of the need to shift to a “green economy”.
We have long known that the economic value of forests
extends far beyond the timber that they produce.

8 OUR PLANET NATURE AT YOUR SERVICE

“With © Nacivet/Getty Images
13 million
hectares of forests
lost every year,
the clock is ticking
pretty fast.”

Biological diversity, non-timber contributions to light often requires Unfortunately, very little of that
forest products, sources of changes in governance and markets. income is captured in national
ecosystem services, and spiritual Researchers have long suspected statistical surveys or accounts, and
solace can all be found in them. that communities in and around so it remains invisible to national
And now as never before, forests derive much of their policy-makers. Survey instruments
they are appreciated for their incomes from the direct used by national statistical offices
contributions to climate change consumption and sale of forest need to be refined to illuminate
mitigation and adaptation. products. A new database the important contribution that
representing the results of income forests make to the incomes of
Yet many of these values remain surveys from more than 8,000 some of the world’s most poor
invisible to policy-makers and households (www.cifor.cgiar. and vulnerable communities.
to the general public, especially org/pen), confirms that hunch:
when compared to quick profits on average, 24 percent of their Another reason for this invisibility
from such alternative land-uses total income comes from forest is that much of the income is at
as commercial agriculture and products. Wood for fuel and least technically illegal — and a
mining. Forests’ hold on public construction, bushmeat, fruits, significant proportion is paid in
and political imagination will be nuts, honey, and mushrooms bribes. When negotiations began
tenuous as long as the economic for food — and a wide variety several years ago on an agreement
contributions of keeping them of products used for medicines, between the Government of
standing remain hidden or handicrafts, ornamentation, and Cameroon and the European
undervalued. And bringing these other uses — all contribute. Commission to ensure that timber
exported to the European Union
was legally sourced, it was assumed
that timber produced informally for
the domestic market was smaller
than the formal sector share.
Research conducted by CIFOR
revealed that in fact this is about
four times larger than previously
thought, providing employment and
income to some 45,000 people.

Crackdowns on illegal logging
tend to target the little guys with
the chainsaws rather than the

OUR PLANET NATURE AT YOUR SERVICE 9

big ones with the bank accounts. “Everyone would be better — and not to highlight their
Everyone would be better off if important roles in contributing to
timber produced informally for off if timber produced food security, both in providing
the domestic market were brought subsistence and cash income
into an appropriate regulatory informally for the domestic and in supporting sustainable
framework that safeguards both agricultural productivity. Forest
the environmental sustainability of market were brought into goods are a crucial component of
the resource and the livelihoods of rural livelihoods: 80 percent of
local producers. Professionalization an appropriate regulatory wood harvested in Sub-Saharan
rather than criminalization Africa is for energy; bushmeat
provides an alternative way forward. framework that safeguards harvested from Congo Basin forests
is equivalent to the production
Market-based mechanisms to both the environmental of the Brazilian beef industry.
protect forests have a role, but And forests’ critical ecosystem
have not proven sufficient by sustainability of the services to agriculture — as in
themselves to reverse deforestation maintaining hydrological flows and
and degradation. Certification resource and the livelihoods pollination services — would be
schemes — such by the Forestry impossible or expensive to replace.
Stewardship Council — recognize of local producers.”
producers who take the right values Even those who understand the
into account in their practices. benefits both of existing uses and need to maintain forests as part of
But industry leaders complain that of those that may be created by integrated landscape management
most people appear not yet ready REDD and other payments for strategies often focus exclusively on
to pay a price premium reflecting ecosystems services (PES) schemes. increasing agricultural productivity
the costs of protecting those values. as a way of taking pressure off
Purchasing decisions that reflect The potential of using such them. Such productivity increases
concerns about the sustainability of schemes — which depend on a are certainly necessary, and
the world’s forests are driven more clear “seller” of the environmental desirable for other reasons, but
by the reputational sensitivities of service in question — to save are not in themselves sufficient
retailers than by the preferences the forest is compromised by the to reduce this pressure. Indeed,
of ultimate consumers. More lack of clarity and conflict over research has shown that, depending
attention should be given to policy who owns it . CIFOR research on relative prices and markets,
interventions to level the playing has illuminated the extent of increasing agricultural productivity
field for sustainable producers. such barriers to operationalizing can actually create incentives to
green economy tools in conditions accelerate forest clearance. So these
Logged-over “degraded” forests typical of most tropical forests. It efforts must go hand-in-hand with
continue to be prime targets estimates that only about half of reform of forest governance to align
for conversion to other uses — the forests in the Brazilian Amazon incentives for forest protection.
despite the richness of carbon, that would be economically
biodiversity, and sources of local viable for PES-type payments So as we mark this International
livelihood (such as bushmeat) they to reduce forest-based climate Year of Forests, governments and
often contain. More informed emissions are not compromised other policy-makers must recognize
and accountable spatial planning by such land tenure “chaos”. the true value that forests hold for
processes should target agricultural local communities, countries and
expansion to genuinely degraded The fragility of support for the entire world. With 13 million
areas, and recognize the rights protecting forests in the absence hectares of them lost every year,
of current resource users to the of hard evidence of their economic the clock is ticking pretty fast.
value is perhaps best illustrated by
10 OUR PLANET NATURE AT YOUR SERVICE recent debates about how to achieve
food security. These debates tend
to characterize forests as a land-use
option competing in a zero-sum
game with agricultural expansion