LIMBE CONFERENCE RECOMMENDATIONS

WORKING GROUP FOUR

VALUING THE FOREST

Working Group Four posed three questions as the basis for its discussions:

• What conditions are needed to ensure that local communities place a higher value on keeping the forest standing than on its progressive depletion or removal?

• What actions are needed by government to give higher value to long term conservation of the forests than to their short-term exploitation?

• What actions are needed to secure more appropriate levels of international assistance and cost sharing in respect of the global values of biodiversity conservation?

The discussions resulted in a table showing positive values that need to be enhanced to give higher value to the forest, alongside negative values that might prevent/inhibit this.

See Table at end

Recommendations emerging from the Group were as follows:

RECOMMENDATIONS TO NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS

1. Recognise the importance of Multiple Use Management (MUM) to maximise the value of forest conservation to rural communities, through their interest in the subsistence livelihood and cultural values of forests.

2. Intensify forest inventories, botanical surveys, socio-economic surveys, biodiversity assessments, ethnobotanical studies and other relevant research, to support the strategic planning of Multiple Use management (MUM), and the preparation of management plans for specific areas, taking account of their relative priorities for social, environmental and national development objectives.

3. Recognise the high potential of the sustainable harvesting and improved production of Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), both within the forest, and through agroforestry in buffer zones, to increase the value of natural forests to local communities, in support of biodiversity conservation.

4. Improve the availability of existing information, and strengthen research, training and extension activities, to support the efficient and sustainable harvesting, local processing, marketing, propagation and genetic improvement of Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), with particular attention to the interests of poorer households, women and the needs of future generations.

5. Strengthen the use of, and support to, local knowledge and traditional practices of NTFP harvesting and management, wherever appropriate in accordance with Multiple Use Management (MUM) and forest conservation.

6. Recognise the role of forests in the total livelihood systems of rural people, and ensure their sufficient access to, participation in, and control over, their sustainable use of forest resources important to them in this connection, to maintain and enhance the values they attach to forest conservation.

7. Recognise the cultural values of forests to local communities, and ensure that their protection is given high priority in the national plans for forest conservation and timber production.

8. Recognise the potential of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to provide additional benefits to local communities, and establish efficient mechanisms to ensure their equitable and timely delivery to the people most entitled to receive them.

9. Adopt, and enforce, the already accepted principles of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) in the planning and execution of timber harvesting with special attention to safeguarding the social and environmental values of the forest, including its biodiversity, in accordance with the national strategic plans for forest use and conservation.

10. Ensure that management plans for specific areas are prepared in advance of any proposed timber harvesting, and are based on adequate information, and consultation with local communities, to ensure the proper regeneration and sustainability of the forest resources, and their environmental and social values, with appropriate attention to biodiversity conservation, in accordance with national strategic plans and priorities.

11. Strengthen the provision of economic and social expertise in support of the more complete and thorough analysis and representation of all the values of the natural forests in national forest resource accounting (FRA).

12. Ensure that the complete valuation of the forest resources, products and benefits to society is fully reflected in the setting and efficient collection of all fees for timber harvesting, and that the revenue collected is sufficient for, adequately committed to, the regeneration and conservation of the forests.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

1. Strengthen technical and financial assistance to African governments for development of adequate information bases for Multiple Use Management (MUM), including strategies and plans for efficient biodiversity conservation.

2. Actively help National Governments to identify, and as far as possible quantify, the additional costs (including opportunity costs) to national and local economies, of that element of biodiversity conservation which is being undertaken primarily for global benefit, rather than in the national interest alone.

3. Take note of the relevant experience of countries most advanced in the development of forest resource information and management systems designed to reconcile the efficient conservation of biodiversity with Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) for timber production (e.g. Ghana), with a view to stimulating and assisting such developments in all other interested countries.

4. Take advantage of the forthcoming African Hearing of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development to bring the relevant recommendations of this Conference to the attention of the international community.

LIMBE CONFERENCE: WORKING GROUP FOUR

Positive		Negative
1.	Potential for multiple use A	A.	Conflict between uses/users.
2.	High value of NTFPs B C D K	B.	Benefits go to present generation, losses are borne by future generations.
3.	Forest seen by people as part of total livelihood system E L	C.	Benefits go to the rich, costs borne by the poor.
4.	Potential for increased value through improved market access/price. F D	D.	Conserving forests has negative value for rural poor.
5.	Potential for increased value added through local processing. F G	E.	Forests seen as not part of communities total livelihood system.
6.	Potential for increasing value through improved selection/propagation. N	F.	Increasing market opportunities/prices increase depletion of NTFPs in forest.
7.	Agroforestry in buffer zone to reduce pressure on forest. H	G.	Increasing commercial value attracts new collectors (men; rich) at expense of traditional collectors (women; poor).
8.	Increasing rural incomes reduce need to overuse forest. B K	H.	Cultivation of NTFPs on farms reduces value of forest.
9.	Traditional knowledge and management practices. I	I.	Government actions override cultural values and traditional practices.
10.	Socio-economic surveys reveal forest values/incentives. L	J.	Benefits of biodiversity conservation are global, costs are local.
11.	Ethnobotanical surveys reveal opportunities for multiple-use management. I	K.	Government taxes reduce incentives to local people to conserve the forest.
12.	Potential benefits from intellectual property rights. B C I J	L.	Government's failure to appreciate value of forests.
13.	Cultural values. I	M.	Lack of access to information to support improved practices.
14.	NTFP collection offers employment for households especially women and children. B G K	N.	Timber exploitation restricts or overrides people's uses and values.
15.	Training and extension link scientific knowledge to traditional practices M	O.	Restrictions on people's access empowerment, etc.
16.	Timber values N C P	P.	Timber revenue share to people might conflict with people's cultural valuation of forest.
17.	Ecotourism